News: Navy to buy more attack crafts

Image downloaded from
Philippine Navy website.

[Unpublished, Edited by Writer]
Submitted to BusinessMirror: Mar 10 for Mar 11, 2013
By: Dennis D. Estopace, Reporter

THE PHILIPPINE government plans to plunk down P270 million for the purchase of three more "multi-purpose attack crafts" (MPACs).

The acquisition is under our mid-term development plan for 2014 to 2017, Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Fabic said.

Fabic, the Philippine Navy spokesperson, said that the acquisition process for the three MPACs is already at the first stage, which composes planning and defining of requirements.

The second stage will determine who the possible proponent of the project will be while Stages 3 and 4 refers to the actual costing and possible delivery date of the MPACs and other requirements.

The Philippine Navy (PN) currently has six MPACs in service. Each MPAC carries a tag price of roughly P90 million.

Three of them were sourced from Taiwan. The other three were ordered from Binondo, Manila-based Propmech Corp. of the Tong and Ong family.

The firm’s latest financial statement submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission said while total cash position dipped by 4.5 percent in 2011 to PhP20.835 million, Propmech’s total current assets increased to PhP641 million versus the previous year of PhP466 million.

 

Propmech delivered the first of three MPACs in 2012. That MPAC was subjected to a short sea trial during the 114th PN anniversary celebration May 22, 2012.

An MPAC is 16.5 meters long, 4.76 meters wide and has a draft of one meter and a top speed of 45 knots. It has a range 300 nautical miles.

The hull is made of high-quality aluminum and is crewed by one officer and four enlisted personnel.

It is capable of carrying 16 fully-equipped troopers or two tons of cargo.

The MPAC is capable of operating in territorial waters up to "Sea State 3" (slight waves) without any system degradation.

It is armed with one .50 caliber and two 7.62mm machine guns.