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| Photo credit: AFP |
On
Tuesday, August, 12, the Armed Forces of the Philippines will conduct a formal
distribution ceremony for its newly acquired Assault Rifles. The ceremony aims
to officially mark the start of
modernization project and will be held at the AFP Headquarters canopy area.
Of
course, high rank military officials are expected to be there at the event,
including the President and AFP Commander-in-Chief Benigno Aquino III together
with Secretary of National Defense, Voltaire T. Gazmin and AFP Chief of Staff,
General Gregorio Pio P. Catapang Jr.
At
the ceremony, the AFP will issue a total of 27,300 units of 5.56mm M4 rifles to
both Philippine Army and Philippine Marine Corps. The rifles are delivered by
batch and the first batch was distributed last July 5 with 100 units while the
second batch was last July 31 with 27,200 units. The remaining 23,329 units are expected to be
provided in December, this year.
As
a part of Joint Philippine Army modernization project, the AFP will receive a total of 50,629 units of
brand new M4 rifles with 44,186 to be given to the Army and 6,443 for the Navy.
This
acquisition project was estimated at P1.9 billion, which was sourced from the
AFP Capability Upgrade Program (CUP) 2012. The new rifles will be supplied by
the United States-based Remington Outdoor Company who won the public bidding in October 2013.
The
arranged budget for the contract was about P3.3 billion thus making a total reserve
for the government at about P1.2 billion. The government says that the savings
will be used for the obtaining of additional rifles.
The
5.56mm M4 rifle will replace the models
of M-16 and M-16A1 rifle which was used by Vietnamese in War era while they were still in poor
condition.
The
AFP Modernization Program is to improve
the capability requirements of the AFP
in terms of weapons for the ground troops. The AFP is optimistic that it will meaningfully
contribute to the development and upgrades
of the AFP’s capability.
