Gov’t to spend P1.5B for upgrade of coast guard vessels

File photo shows coastguardsmen carrying a rubber boat next to a helicopter as they prepare for deployment to a typhoon-hit province. AFP PHOTO/NOEL CELIS

MANILA, Philippines–The government will spend P1.5 billion over the next two years to rehabilitate Philippine Coast Guard vessels using funds from Malampaya gas field, Transportation and Communication Secretary Manuel Roxas II said Thursday.

Roxas underscored the need to modernize the PCG so it could watch the 36,000 kilometers of coastline in the country and also because there were “100 million other Filipinos traversing our sea lanes in all other parts of country.”

Part of the P1.5 billion–or P160 million–will be spent to repair two 56-meter Coast Guard ships, which are currently dry-docked, and one 35-meter ship, according to Roxas.

He said that they will also repair a helicopter that had not been used in the last five years.

Likewise, they will also buy a search and rescue Islander plane that Roxas said was more fuel-efficient and “designed to loiter in an area and look for survivors.”

In addition, he said the money will be used to deploy coast guard detachments in key locations in the country.

“The capability of the coast guard will improve but it is still limited. But definitely it will improve versus where we are today,” Roxas told reporters at the Manila International Container Terminal in Port Area, Manila where he and President Aquino had just attended the inauguration of a berth there belonging to the International Container Terminal Services, Inc.

Roxas also said Japan was offering to loan the country money to buy more Coast Guard vessels.