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| The Case for a Philippine Naval Academy; Isn't it high time we have one? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: May 29 2006, 07:23 PM (3,958 Views) | |
| MSantor | May 31 2006, 09:10 PM Post #11 |
 
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From your responses, you still haven't given me any good reason for the establishment of a PNA NOW. It would have made sense when the nation became newly independent in 1946 that they should have did away with the PMA and created the PNA, since the RP is, after all, archipelagic, maritime nation! For the "Good of a Service?" Excuse Me? As I said, we don't need another clique that will further divide the Philippine Navy between ringknockers and ROTCers/OCSers who are more hell bent on advancing the careers of their class/batch brothers and themselves rather than thinking of the good of the navy and the nation as a whole. It's bad enough that PMAers get preference for high command positions and you want to creat a another clique BESIDES the PMA one? Geez, you must have such a LOW OPINION of ROTC and OCS grads, who make the up majority and backbone of PN and PMC officers and probably the whole AFP as well. From what I see, you're just biased in favor of another navy officer clique just for the sake of pride when other things, such as modernization of the whole armed forces SHOULD COME FIRST! Say, we do establish a PNA? What then? Ha? Are PNA naval cadets going to ponder over textbooks of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Nelson's writings and read about OTHER NAVIES' great victories when the most heavily armed warship in the PN is a measly Peacock-class Corvette that doesn't even have missiles? Or even torpedoes for that matter? A lot of "good" those elite PNA-trained ensigns will make when PLA Sunburn missiles are raining around their Peacock Class corvette that doesn't even have Phalanx! Read my other post above again:
As I said before, a naval academy is the priviliege of a large, well-established, well-funded navy. This includes the former Imperial Japanese Naval Academy at Eta Jima. Or the Royal Navy Academy at Dartmouth, as well as the 3 US Naval Schools I mentioned at the USNA, USMMA and USCGA. Perhaps scores of decades from now if the world hasn't frozen over from another ice age due to global warming, beyond our lifetimes, and IF the Philippine Republic not only still exists, but also has a WELL-FUNDED, WELL-ARMED NAVY with a proud, battle-tested, history behind it, then the PN will earn the priviliege of having a naval academy! Until then, it's time to stopping polishing those old antiques we call combatants and start saving for a Harpoon missile-equipped Frigate! Even if it means draining the pork barrel for more basketball courts besides pock-marked roads that the RP Congressman sign off their funds for! 
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"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." - Henry Ford "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill "If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking"- Gen. George S. Patton | |
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| jacobsladder | May 31 2006, 10:56 PM Post #12 |
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It is not only an upgrading of a school(PMMA) that is involved here...PMMA is not under the DND, so you can not just abolish PMMA and create PNA out of it...for you, it may be that simple but PMMA was created by a republic act so legally it is not that easy to do...this law specifies that PMMA produce graduates mainly for the merchant marine and secondarily for the PN in times of emergency ...your observation that the graduates do not serve in the PN is therefore absurd because they are not required to do so...you also mentioned something about private maritime schools turning out thousand of graduates for the merchant marine and therefore PMMA is no longer needed...yes, there are indeed a number of private schools producing thousand of graduates annually many of whom just joined the ranks of unemployed...why?? because these schools operate mainly for profit which I may say is a normal business objective...what is bad is that they charge very high tuition fees/expenses to students without even assuming the responsibility of helping them for the practical experience they needed on board ship...the merchant marine is a highly competitive business and if you are unable to secure the required one year experience as a deck/engine cadet before even taking the PRC exams, then you will not make it...in contrast, PMMA which is not profit oriented just train and produce quality graduates who are in demand in the crewing industry...the school has agreements with various crewing agencies to accept their 3rd year students for apprenticeships and they have difficulty supplying these cadets...you must understand that there are also poor but gifted students who can not afford to pay the high tuition fees and other expenses charged by these private schools...for them, PMMA and PMA are the only choices...also if I may follow your reasoning that the govt does not need to maintain PMMA because there are already other schools doing the same, do you imply then the govt does not need to operate also other state schools like UP,PNU,PUP etc since there is UST,Ateneo, La Salle etc all offering similar courses??? I'm not against the creation of PNA but the present resources of the PN and the govt has to be given due considerations...how much is the PN officer requirements annually??...how many of these can be supplied by PMA??.. PMMA has facilties to produce 250 to 300 graduates yearly...can they all be absorbed by the PN?? ..what is the use of having so many officers without ships to man???..at present, a small portion of the graduates join the PCG yearly since it does not have a regular source of officers...PMMA receives assistance from foreign sources and these may disappear if it is converted to a military institution..the present set up is adequate because graduates of the school contribute millions of dollars to the Phil economy by way of their remittances...if you agree that the OFWs are vital to the country's economy, then you should thank PMMA graduates because they are part of these groups which inject billions of dollars to the domestic economy which, by multiplier effect, enables the various industries like real estate developers,car dealers, mall developers etc to expand...if you are dreaming that PMMA will go away someday because you are infected by an unexplainable virus, your dream is far from becoming a reality jacobsladder |
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| Tony Moon | Jun 1 2006, 07:02 AM Post #13 |
Trainee
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MSantor, Excuse me, but did I say we should do away with the PMA? The powers that be have realized the value of PMA by the time 1946 came along. Indeed they should have had it much earlier than 1935. I never suggested that the PMA should be replaced by a PNA. Before the war, what we had during Quezon's time was a tiny force known as the OSP (Off-Shore Patrol) operated under the Philippine Army made up of British Thornycroft fast patrol craft called "Q"-boats (Quezon boats). O.K. so maybe we didn't need a PNA. But after WW2 we had a sizeable fleet of up-to-date surplus ex-U.S. navy ships of various types. There was no reason to NOT have a PNA except for "political" reasons or simply perhaps for lack of will.
If there are cliques in the AFP it's mainly between regulars and reservists (officers with "O" plus four digits against those with more numbers). You can only blame that on individual stupidity. What I'm advocating is for a healthy inter-service rivalry. The best way for the the services to keep a sharp competitive edge is to be in friendly rivalry with the other services. The Army will have to prove that it can be more efficient than the Navy and the Navy does likewise. It will keep them on their toes 24:7. The fact of the matter is, PMA graduates represent an overwhelmingly preponderant "clique" among regular officers in the AFP. Such a situation IS dangerous and harmful, (eg. high potential for organized coups etc.). You lessen the danger by forming a rival "clique" of roughly equal size within the regular officer corps. The sensible strategy is not to try eradicating cliques, it can NEVER be eradicated. There are cliques within PMA gradutes serving in the same AFP branch you know. So the RATIONAL thing to do is to merely destroy it's potential for creating mischief. And how is this done?.....Make more cliques! make sure there are so many and so individually tiny that no one clique is so preponderant and powerfull. All this is just politics anyway. If they want positive changes, then one clique has to be more cooperative and less arrogant with others to form a coalition.
If the Army wants more tanks, let the ARMY lobby for it! The GHQ is a preponderantly "land-lubber" organization as it is. That's why I'm strongly lobbying for the "lobby power" of the navy by establishing a school which will churn out officers independent of the Army dominated high command and strengthen the hand of the navy in aquiring those ships and missile systems you so earnestly want. Otherwise the money just goes to the construction of some general's mansion and what not.
Like I have said to you before, you have to fix the government mindset first. We need an military and naval industrial complex geared for eventual export. Let me give you an example of how simply aquiring new weapons ain't worth a tub of turd. Sometime in the late seventies or early 80's Marcos decided to get supersonic Crusader jets. So yes we had had an "instant" capability upgrade in our Air Force. But there was nothing done in terms of technology transfer, no localization of spare parts manufacturing, no avionics upgrade packages set forth. In short, we scared the Red Chinese and Malaysian airforces for only about as long as the last batch of Crusade jets could be operationally maintained...I'd say about a period of five years. But after that....what happened? Will all the money spent and no local export industry to churn out dollars to replenish the coffers we ended up with a PAF capability that became even more ridiculous than before we had those jets!......So who ended up laughing? 
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| Tony Moon | Jun 1 2006, 07:16 AM Post #14 |
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Jacobsladder, If you share the view that the PMMA "top foreign exchange" machine should not be troubled by thoughts of turning into a PNA then your welcome to it. If the PMMA is really a civilian poverty alleviation project, or what amounts to a CHARITY INSTITUTION and so on then O.K., we don't touch the PMMA. The Merchant Marine is after all a fully civilian entity. It is well supported by worldwide merchant seamen's organizations and other labor unions. INCLUDING THE KMU and GABRIELA! I can't imagine a segment of the AFP having labor union members anyway. All the more we need a Naval Academy which is built with its own cornerstone! NOT just a development or hybrid project of the Spanish regime or the American overlordship. A naval academy that is founded by Filipinos for the Filipinos!
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| MSantor | Jun 1 2006, 10:00 AM Post #15 |
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Tony, That's still a poor excuse for NOT acquiring new weapons. There are lot of countries which do not have a large military-industrial complex/local defense industry and some which do not have it at all. Chile has F-16 fighters, as well as our neighbor Indonesia, and neither have much of a mil-industrial complex. But if you have the money to buy spare parts/upgrades from the source country from which you bought those new weapons, then there shouldn't be a problem. The RP is SCORES of decades away from building their own military-industrial complex because RP is more an agricultural nation than an industrial one. Therefore the best INTERIM solution to get a decent modern military in this world is to buy foreign-made weapons. And while foreign-made ships and planes crewed by AFP servicemen hold the line for decades, the RP govt. should start investing in the beginnings of a bigger mil-industrial complex that will eventually create their own planes, ships as well as the support/maintenance functions for those. The RP could start by resurrecting the old Hummingbird and Cali Pinto aviation projects. Perhaps some innovative RP engineer could develop a aircraft engine that runs on ethanol from the Tuba-Tuba ethanol plant; the RP could fund a mil-industrial complex from civilian sales of that engine. After all, alternative fuels is the way to go in a world where the cost of oil is rising. And you still haven't given me a VIABLE counterargument to this quote:
As for your comment on forming PNA clique as helping prevent further "mischief" among the cliques already there, I'm afraid I must disagree my conservative friend who sees competition/rivalry between groups within the military as something healthy. That competition should only be between companies within the business world. Graduates of Canada's RMC-Kingston and of Japan's Self-Defense Force Academy and the Australia Defense Force Academy still provide a clique of officers who still provide a sterling service to their service arm of choice in spite of having graduation batch mates who chose a different service arm. Thus you haven't made your case in proving that a tri-service PMA will help naval cadets less than a dedicated Philippine Naval Academy, since there are already navy, airforce and army cliques WITHIN the PMA as you pointed out yourself. The RP has an unfortunate tradition of Patronage learned from their Spanish masters, and a PNA clique will only identify with their own rather than with the service as a whole. The same goes for the current PMA clique. They will even prefer less capable officers for promotion as long as that candidate for promotion have the ring. If they're corrupt, they will hoard whatever funds they extort for their own batchmates, to the detriment to modernization program and to the detriment of the nation's defense. Thus, having a PNA clique will only further divide the funds pie among cliques with their own interests rather than see the pie used for the good of the whole AFP and the nation. Rivalry is only a good thing between individual, smaller units within the military, not between whole service arms. Canada did the right thing by unifying the RCN, RAF and RCA into one service in 1968- the Canadian Forces, where people identify with the military as a whole rather than with just their service. Canadian enlisted men (called NCMs or non-commissioned members), all go through same boot camp at St. Jean Quebec, regardless of whether they're joining land forces, air command or maritime command. Their officers only come from two sources- the RMC at Kingston and the BOTC course at St. Jean for graduates for graduates of civilian colleges. This negates the need for seperate general staffs and seperate logistics chains, so there is also less overhead. On a similar note, the United States Marine Corps is the most efficient of all the US services because there are NO INTERNAL CLIQUES within the USMC. Of course, you have Marine aviators and Force Recon Marines, but these marines do not wear their medal and wings among fellow marines because it is heresy in a service where "all marine are riflemen". Force Recon marines are only considered "More Marine" than ordinary Marines in the regular battalions and in support units, but they do not wear any special badges. All Marines go through the school of infantry at Camp Lejeune after their first 13-week boot camp at either Parris Island or San Diego, regardless of what the chosen MOS or job was, since all marines, from avionics to mechanics to cooks, are riflemen. The same goes for Marine Officers who go through the Marine OCS at Quantico Virginia and later the vaunted "Basic School" where all marine officers, from aviators to staff dinks, still learn to lead a rifle platoon in combat in spite of their MOS. This is unlike the US Army, which is FULL OF CLIQUES like the Airborne, the Rangers, Delta Force, Armor, Artillery and so forth. This dilutes the service identity and makes soldiers identify more with the unit and less with the service as a whole. The USMC are an example to the other services because they're the ones most dependent on joint-operations with other services to justify their existence. Thus they realize that fighting a war is a JOINT effort, and thus respect their need for the navy to transport them to foreign shores as well as the air force need to airlift their ground forces occasionally; this is in contrast to during the Cold War where you had the USN wanting its big carriers and the USAF competing by calling for their huge bomber fleets. The Marines were the service that most encouraged that "joint concept" and thus a joint military identity. If you don't agree with me, then read Thomas E. Ricks "Making the Corps" before you even start making your case against me. The Marines are thus an example of what could be done within a multi-role single service where everyone identifies with the same service; the Marine MAGTAF which has ground and marine air elements, supported by naval gunfire, is a testament of that genius. For a country such as the Philippines whose military is only around 100,000 strong, one multi-role service would have sufficed for a country with limited resources. And that should have been one maritime service for an archipelagic service. It could have been the Philippine Navy, with its own naval figther wings, as well as its own land army in the form of the Marines. This maybe copying the USN, but one service for the RP would have discouraged inter-military rivalry because they all identify with the same service and thus less competition for funding and thus less overhead and no need for seperate general staffs. Don't get me wrong, Tony, I'm not totally against the PNA. I just think that if you're gonna have a clique, it might as well be the whole military, and not within. And the whole military for the RP probably should have be one service- the Philippine Navy! Bravo Zulu! And there should have been a PNA instead of a PMA if you're gonna have one service academy. It should have been from the very beginning of this nation. No offence meant to members or retired members of other service arms. However, since reality is far from the ideal, a PNA at this time is still a very bad idea, and only for the purposes of vanity/pride more than anything else. |
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"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." - Henry Ford "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill "If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking"- Gen. George S. Patton | |
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| Tony Moon | Jun 1 2006, 05:14 PM Post #16 |
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MSantor, It's not a question of large or small MICs, the point is Chile began to have a small indigenous arms industry by the mid 70's in response to the U.S. arms embargo against the military junta and the Pinochet regime. This is aside from the fact that the Chilean military budget is well covered by the country's well developed mining industry (especially copper). Don't underestimate Chile. It already had a battleship as far back as the 1880's and is often entangled with border conflicts with Argentina. the Chilean military and navy has long been developed by the British, Germans, French and Americans. It is a major player in south american affairs. And I don't have to remind you that even the Indonesian economy and defense establishment is much better developed than the Philippines. Indonesian oil, rubber, & tin can finance their F-16s any day. Besides, they got those jets for a bargain from the Americans because the Australians earlier bought F-16s and Jakarta protested. Being the largest & most populous muslim country in the world and an absolutely vital U.S. strategic partner in southeast asia, the Americans practically gave the Indonesians those new jets just to keep them contented. You can't say the idea of the Philippines having a burgeoning arms industry anytime soon is so far fetched when you look at Pakistan which started out having much less not too long ago. It's all a matter of political will.
But the "traditional" AFP idea of spare parts procurement is to aquire say a dozen new units and reserve three or four for future cannibalization for spare parts. This "tradition" stays in effect regardless of availability of funds or the lack of it.
Like I said. It is all a question of will to overcome the politics.
I don't have to because I'm not arguing the accuracy or truth behind your statement here. Even the whole AFP cannot do anything about this until the political leadership wisens up to a level which not only can sympathize with that idea but have the will to actually do something about it. So what can be done NOW? we wait for a regime change of hearts & minds?,... go for a coup and kill all the reds in government? The only legal prerogative left right now is training and indoctrinating better service oriented people. We might as well finish off our business with our local insugents and finally send them all to hell, clean our own house, and THEN we can look at our external threats with undivided attention.
Well, that fine if you just want one overwhelmingly preponderant gang dictating the standards of service in our armed forces. If they say it's good enough even when it leaves much room for improvement then who else can say with authority that they can do a better job, or even perhaps that the "other" service is actually doing the same job better? You lay all your eggs in one basket, if that one basket falls then you've got nothing left but broken eggs.
But the Canadians, the Australians, and of course the Japanese can afford to do that. Why?..because they already have established an undeniable record of excellence and retained an "imprint" of highly motivated professional service during the times when they schoooled most of their naval officers in service specific academies. (in the case of Canada and Australia, I mean Dartmouth; for Japan, I mean Eta Jima). The Aussies can say, "yes we fought against Admiral graf von Spee at Coronel and off the Falklands". The Canadians can say, "yes we were at Jutland, and the Japanese can say, "yes we won the battle for Tsushima, the raid on Pearl Harbor & Java Sea and off Savo island in Guadalcanal!" Somehow, saying "yes we lopped off Magellan's head at Mactan!" can't seem to bring about a similar effect.
Remind me to cancel my subscription to Leatherneck Magazine. You must know that the Marines as a service arm started out as on-board-ship security guards to keep a watchful eye on mutinous sailors who might want to slit the captian's throat. In short, the Marines were traditionally the most despised of all service branches within the U.S. military. So the Marines as a whole began to to have a mentality not unlike the convict system where they found brotherhood and commonality from their own notoriety as "meatheads" and "rednecks". Their empahsis was on blind obedience and marksmanship. It was this type of Marine which won the savage battles for the Pacific in WW2. Still, it was just as well that the marines constantly had to compete with the the fleet for the Navy budget. It made them work harder to prove they were worth keeping (get the point?). Although of course since the 80's they adopted more and more of the clean professional image of the much smaller British Royal Marine Commandos who are trained to fight as smaller formations and to think for themselves,... as they say..."adapt", "improvise", and "overcome"! Believe me a great deal of inefficiency went on in Vietnam before they learned to fight in a new combat environment....whole regiments or even divisions were positioned to cover areas before they learned the value of sending smaller detachments called LRPS. The reason why units became more mixed up with various specialties within was because the basic operational unit became much smaller and had to operate in the jungle independent of base camps for longer periods of time. After Vietnam, they still encouraged multiple skills training mainly because a lot of marines wanted to go civilian or change service branches. The retention rate for personnel improved thereafter. These days, the more "skills and cross-training one has means a highier pay grade or promotion. But as you know, the U.S. has the money to do this. However, I'll tell you now that this system is NOT paying off in Iraq or Afghanistan because the "unit" is getting larger again and there's a lot of redundancy, meaning it's so much more expensive to put Marines in the field. This is why the "multiple" cliqued U.S. army is doing the main job of maintaining the peace and order situation in Iraq, in much the fashion the AFP is operating in the Philippines we hope.
Then its would really be only a matter of ratio and proportion...small navy, small naval academy, humungous job to do. I'm not asking for the "Manila Hotel" with an equal number of servants and staff you know, one or two buildings will do; an engineering shop; a lab; a modest marina plus a couple of foreign donated training ships and maybe a modest gym. If private businessmen can set up set up dozens of maritime schools, can't the government spare a couple of its nootime "luncheons" at the senate hall and use the money to build it instead?
We both only want what's best for our AFP and our nation. Given an ideal situation with a public largely respectful and proud of it's own military, a tri-service institute can do the job just as well. But you and I know the PMA is NOT an RMC-Kingston nor is the Philippines Canada. West Point was only a fort sold by Benedict Arnold to the British during Washington's time and what sufficed for the U.S. Navy in 1776 were privateers manned essentially by pirates like John Paul Jones. Annapolis came to be the Naval Academy only very much later on at a time when the U.S. "fleet" consisted of exactly three frigates and a few merchant sloops. Then in America as now in the Philippines, we hear the same voices for and against. But when it came to their decision the Americans finally gave it the go. Indeed it was for sake of "pride" and "vanity" too, except of course they choose to call it more as "ambition" than anything else.
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| Nobrainer91 | Jun 1 2006, 08:25 PM Post #17 |
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Tony Moon, Brother, If what you are saying make sense then, there’s no doubt labor unions have well penetrated the armed forces for a very long time now. Why? Few PMMA grads retired recently from PN with the rank of Commodore (Parawan and Montojo). Not only that, we have to be careful with the coast guard too because the previous commandant Rear Admiral Lista ’69 is a product of PMMA. Oh! By the way, if you happened to see former AFP chief General Abadia, ask him how many years he spent inside PMMA as a midshipman. I know some joined Maritime Police in the mid nineties. So, those Police Inspectors might be part of Gabriela’s infiltration unit? How about others who choose to join PM and almost lost their lives fighting Abu Sayaff in Mindanao? maybe they are KMU agents. Good Luck brother! |
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| MSantor | Jun 1 2006, 08:38 PM Post #18 |
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Just great, more paranoia about leftists which could lead to inter-service, Stalinist-style purges which could erroneously sweep up AFP officers who are actually loyal to the government. Labor unions are not bad, but violent communists are. I wish people would make the effort to know the difference.  You wanna kill reds, join the marines and put your money where your mouth is. It's about time they just napalm those Red suckers to hell. |
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"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." - Henry Ford "Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill "If everyone is thinking alike, someone isn't thinking"- Gen. George S. Patton | |
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| Tony Moon | Jun 2 2006, 03:11 AM Post #19 |
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You mean a PMMA graduate will do any job demanded of him by any foreign merchant shipping company regardless of whether it is within his contract or not? If in fact this is so then it's a big mystery how they ever manage to hold on to their jobs because unionized crew members will have routinely chucked them overboard and make it look like an accident. I never said Admiral Lista, General Abadia, or those maritime cops you met are reds. They joined the services so we can assume to know where their sympathies are. They are the exception to the norm. I'm not saying every labor union is red either, in fact a lot are quite conservative in outlook. But you must know that anything that has to do with international mercantile shipping cannot escape labor unions. But all it takes is just one genuine communist spy and he can be capable of doing an enormous amount of damage. The best double agents are those whose names and deeds we will never know. I doubt if you are familiar with Dr. Nemesio Prudente? He was the president of the Philippine College of Commerce (now the Polytechnic University of the Philippines), and a leading communist figure during the height of those student uprisings called "the First Quarter Storm". That guy even graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kingspoint. EVEN JUST ONE COMMUNIST IN THE OFFICER CORPS IS ONE COMMUNIST TOO MANY! 
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| saver111 | Jun 2 2006, 07:48 AM Post #20 |
PDFF Moderator
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And creating a PNA is no assurance of not getting commies and rebels into the AFP. |
 Justice for Daniel Lorenz Jacinto HELP END PIRACY NOW!: http://www.itfseafarers.org/petition.cfm | |
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