Twenty-one Philippine Marine Corps (PMC) personnel have recently completed a training in India where they obtained the skills to operate and maintain a shore-based anti-ship missile system (SBASMS) for the integration of the world’s fastest supersonic missile in the world – the BrahMos missile – into its system, the PMC announced on Saturday, Feb. 18.

Col. Romulo Quemado, commander of the PMC's Coastal Defense Regiment, lauded his team for finishing the operator training of the BrahMos Shore-Based Anti-Ship Missile System as he expressed optimism that the trained personnel will be able to utilize the SBASMS to improve the country’s coastal defense.

The PMC personnel were awarded with the interim missile badge and pin by Admiral Radhakrishnan Hari Kumar, chief of naval staff of the Indian Navy. The PMC personnel are set to become the first operators of the BrahMos missile system outside of India.

“The induction of the BrahMos missile into the Philippine Marine Corps will strengthen your maritime capability and will also contribute to our collective maritime security within the region,” Kumar said.

The training which ran from Jan. 23 to Feb. 11 “focused on the operations and maintenance of some of the most important logistics package of the SBASMS that will be delivered to the Philippines.”

In January 2022, the Department of National Defense (DND) signed the contract for the procurement of the Indian-made BrahMos missiles as part of the Shore-Based Anti-Ship Missile Acquisition Project of the Philippine Navy worth $374,962,800 or around P18.9 billion.

The acquisition was conceptualized as early as 2017 and approved as part of the priority projects under the second horizon of the revised modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

The delivery of the BrahMos missiles is expected this year and the Coastal Defense Regiment of the PMC will be the end-user of it.

The acquisition of the BrahMos missiles is deemed crucial by the DND to boost the Philippine Navy’s capability to defend the country’s maritime borders and complement the efforts of the Navy’s surface assets in patrolling the Philippine waters.

According to Indian manufacturer BrahMos Aerospace, the BrahMos missile has a flight range of up to 290 km with supersonic speed all through the flight which leads to a shorter flight time and ensures a lower dispersion of its target, a quicker engagement time, and a capability that cannot be intercepted “by any known weapon system in the world.”