Earlier this month, the Philippine defense chief launched an ongoing naval project. The launch spotlighted the Southeast Asian state’s efforts to strengthen its capabilities, including through the development of indigenous capabilities.
As I have observed before in these pages, in recent years, the Philippines has been increasing its focus in building up its military in recognition of the wide range of security challenges it faces as well as its limitations relative to some of its regional neighbors. That has continued under Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
One of the lines of effort within the development of the country’s naval capabilities has been the development of a remote weapon station (RWS). The Philippines has been embarking on an effort to facilitate the firing of the .50 caliber machine gun from a fully automated weapon station for potential use on its vessels in order to improve the firepower capabilities of these assets.
The ongoing RWS project in question has been dubbed Building a Universal Mount for Heavy-Barrel Automated Weapon Integration (Project BUHAWI for short). Project BUHAWI is a collaboration between the Philippine Navy, the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), DOST’s Metals Industry Research and Development Center, and Mechatronics and Robotics Society of the Philippines.
Last week, this development was in the headlines again with the soft-launching of the project by the Philippine defense chief. Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana launched Project BUHAWI on January 7 at the Force Reconnaissance Firing Range, Marine Base Gregorio Lim in Ternate, Cavite, near the Philippine capital of Manila.
According to an official Facebook announcement on the soft-launching, in his remarks during the event, Lorenzana conveyed that he was impressed at the project and conveyed his gratitude to the institutions involved for Project BUHAWI. Lorenzana also framed the significance of the development in terms of not just potential practical gains for the navy, but also in line with the spirit of developing a “self-reliance defense posture” (SRDP), which includes a self-manufacturing of original and indigenous defense materiel.
Of course, it is still early days in the development of Project BUHAWI. And with the soft launching now complete, the focus will now shift to other future events, including the full public launch and its subsequent execution, in order to get a sense of how it is developing in practice. As we see these interactions take place, they will continue to be important to watch loosely to get a sense of how Philippine aspirations are aligning with realities in this respect.