The Philippine Navy (PN) will christen two of its brand new patrol gunboats in Fort San Felipe, Cavite City on Monday, May 8. 

(Photo: Philippine Navy Modernization Office)

The two fast attack interdiction craft-missile (FAIC-M), which were manufactured by Israel Shipyards Ltd., will be named BRP Gener Tinangag (PG903) and BRP Domingo Deluana (PG905), according to Capt. Benjo Negranza, PN spokesperson.

The ceremony will be held around 9 a.m. at the Naval Shipyard, Naval Sea Systems Command, Naval Station Pascual Ledesma with Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri as the guest of honor and speaker. A blessing ceremony for the Navy’s new Naval Shipbuilding Center will follow after the christening.

The missile boats arrived in the country from Israel on April 11. They will join the Acero-class patrol gunboats of the Navy, BRP Nestor Acero (PG-901) and BRP Lolinato To-ong (PG-902).

“They are a welcome addition to the Navy's capability to secure vital choke points, key sea lines of communication, and littoral areas of the country,” Negranza had said during the vessels’ arrival.

The new missile boats were named after two Filipino Marines who had been awarded with the Medal of Valor, the country’s highest military award for courage.

The late Corporal Gener Tinangag died during the early days of the Marawi siege in 2017. He served as an assistant automatic rifleman for the Philippine Marine Corps’ (PMC) Special Operations Platoon (SOP), Marine Battalion Landing Team (MBLT)-5.

Then a private first class, Tinangag was hit by a sniper while rescuing four wounded fellow Marines and retrieving the body of a slain soldier in the vicinity of Mapandi Bridge in Marawi City on June 9, 2017. Despite his injuries, he managed to escort the wounded to safety and bring back the remains of the fallen soldier but he later succumbed to his wounds.

Meanwhile, the late Sergeant Domingo Deluana was an enlisted personnel of the PMC, and was assigned with the 9th Marine Battalion at the height of the government’s anti-insurgency campaign against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in 2000.

Deluana died on April 30, 2000 while providing cover fire to his unit to enable the medical evacuation of their wounded comrades during a military operation in Matanog, Maguindanao despite himself being wounded.

The new patrol gunboats are part of the nine fast craft ordered by the government in 2019 for P10 billion as part of the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to strengthen the country’s defense on littoral areas (near the shorelines).