Ten brand new ships, 25 light trucks and more than a hundred motorcycles are due to arrive next year.
“We are expecting the delivery of the 10 brand new 40-meter multi-role vessels from the Japan government,” PCG commandant Vice Admiral Rodolfo Isorena said yesterday.
Isorena said that they expect the ships – acquired through a loan from Japan – to start arriving by the third quarter of 2015.
While there still is no definite assignment for the 10 new ships, PCG spokesman Commander Armand Balilo said he is not ruling out the possibility that some of these would be sent to patrol the South China Sea.
He said the vessels are ideal in maintaining a “white-to-white ship” presence in the disputed area, which means that coast guard vessels rather than military ships are deployed to defuse tension.
“We want to send a diplomatic message and not to provoke,” Balilo said.
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