Philippine Navy welcomes it's "most powerful warship" to date from South Korea

The Philippine Navy welcomed the arrival of its newly-acquired warship, the Po-hang-class corvette BRP Conrado Yap (PS39), with an official ceremony at the Manila South Harbor on Tuesday.

The warship, commissioned from South Korea, was named after a Filipino soldier who served in the Korean war as part of the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to Korea. Yap, a Philippine Army captain, was considered as the most decorated Filipino soldier during the Korean war.

The 32-year old BRP Conrado Yap is regarded as the Philippine Navy’s “most powerful warship” to date because of its torpedo launchers and sonars that are capable of detecting submarine and other potential underwater threats.

The BRP Conrado Yap will be commanded by Capt. Marco Buena.

According to Buena, with the arrival of BRP Conrado Yap, we now have underwater detection capability. We can now detect submarines and other potential threats that we cannot see.

The Philippine Navy believes the addition of the heavily armed vessel will provide significant boost to its capability in patrolling and safeguarding the country’s territorial limits.

It will also serve as transition platform in empowering and upgrading Filipino sailors knowledge and skills in handling such high-level and advanced equipment/vessel especially with the impending delivery of modern frigates in the next two years, the Philippine Navy added.

The ship will partner with the new Agusta Westland 159 helicopters which are also capable of anti-submarine detection.

The corvette was Republic of Korea Navy ship Chungju (PCC-762).

It was turned over to the Philippine Navy during a commissioning ceremony held at Jinhae Naval Base in South Korea on August 5.

It set sail towards the Philippines on August 12, escorted by the BRP Davao Del Sur (LD602).

While on the way to Manila, the two vessels conducted naval maneuvers and other trainings.

The ships were also shadowed by a Chinese naval vessel, which according to Captain Richard Gonzaga, Commander of Naval Task Group 80.5, was a non-hostile encounter and just a part of a protocol when passing China’s waters.