Japan's Type 88 missiles sink ex-PN ship in Balikatan exercise

Japanese forces taking part in the Balikatan military exercise fired two Type 88 anti-ship missiles at a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship on Monday.

In Chino Gaston’s report on 24 Oras on Monday, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force deployed the missile system in the Paoay Sand Dunes in Ilocos Norte as part of a maritime strike mission. This is the first time the Japanese ordnance was tested in the annual exercise.

The Type 88 surface-to-ship missile (SSM-1) is a truck-mounted anti-ship missile developed by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the late 1980s.

The missiles struck its target 70 kilometers off the coast, the ex-BRP Quezon, a World War II-era minesweeper.

This came a day after the United States Army launched a Tomahawk cruise missile from Leyte that hit a target in Nueva Ecija.

After the Type 88 demonstration, the US Army conducted a rocket strike from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) at the derelict ship.

The bombardment was followed by aerial attacks from FA-50PH multi-role fighters and Super Tucano strike aircraft of the Philippine Air Force.

Delivering the finishing blow were the guns of the Philippine Navy guided missile frigates BRP Miguel Malvar and BRP Antonio Luna and the Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Charlottetown.

Among those watching the proceedings in Paoay were Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi.

In Camp Aguinaldo, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. observed the exercise along with senior ranking officers of the armed forces.

Teodoro stressed the importance of Japanese participation in the Balikatan exercises, as the military forces of allied nations improve their interoperability to preserve a safe Indo-Pacific region.

“It is the first time that the Japanese tested their Type 88. We have seen how it works and we can interoperate it in the future..it is something we should integrate in the future. It is something that we should also integrate because they are using it,” Teodoro said.

‘Militarization’

The group Makabayan criticized the presence of the foreign missile systems in the country, describing them as the “militarization” of the country.

Teodoro countered that this should have been done way before.

“Well militarization for national defense there’s always a claim of militarization but it is under the control of civilian authorities and these should have been done and exercised a long time ago, this being an archipelago. And the claims of militarization are totally misplaced at this day and age when we are open, transparent with the exercises save for operational security,” the secretary said. —RF, GMA News