The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the United States Armed Forces declared as successful the conduct of Balikatan combined joint littoral live fire exercise in San Antonio, Zambales on Wednesday, April 26, when it achieved its objective to sink a mock vessel.

(BRP Pangasinan as monitored by a combined intelligence fusion effects center. Courtesy of RTVM livestream)

Col. Michael Logico, executive agent for the Philippine side of the Exercise Balikatan 2023, said BRP Pangasinan (PS-31) sank at 2:55 p.m. when an F-35B Joint Strike Fighters aircraft of the US delivered a laser-guided bomb to it.

BRP Pangasinan, a World War II-era corvette, represented an enemy force approaching the Philippine territory by sea during the exercise. The vessel was decommissioned by the Philippine Navy in 2021.

“It will not be fair to give all the credit to the US Air Force because a lot of the other aircraft and navy ships also contributed to the sinking of BRP Pangasinan. But what delivered the final salvo was the F-35,” Logico said.

He said that the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that were fired by the troops during the earlier part of the drill did not hit the target. These rockets were supposed to sink the vessel.

“Even before the exercise, we were also not sure if the HIMARS will hit since it is a ground-based and area weapon, not a precision weapon,” Logico said.

Aside from this, several other concerns have to be considered such as the location of BRP Pangasinan.

“The ex-PS31 was not anchored because it is too deep: 6,000 feet. So it was drifting,” he said.

The officer also mentioned that there were two intruders which delayed the exercise, and not one as earlier reported. One was an aerial interloper which was a private unregistered single craft aircraft that flew in the middle of the ocean near the operational area while the other one was a boat. 

“This resulted to the delay since they [troops] have to recompute [the location] and because of the drift, they found it hard to hit PS-31,” he said.