At the first sign of daylight, just after the mosque had finished its call to prayers, the patrol gunboat of the Philippine Navy’s Task Force 62 left the pier of Tawi-Tawi.

A crew of 12 Navy men in camouflage shorts and beige t-shirts took their posts in the 78-foot assault craft that didn’t look too menacing if not for the twin 25-millimeter guns aimed at the sky. Later, two marine teams joined the patrol on board. They brought with them the all too familiar dingy rubber boats that have always accompanied the Marines in their tasks.

It was a routine for the Navy men but for a civilian observer, it was picturesque sight. The grayness of the boat appeared like a postcard silhouette against the purple haze of a dawn. The island itself has a spectacular natural formation—a flattened peak with a gaping hole dug out in the middle.

“You think this is beautiful? We see this all the time,” said marine officer Maj. Juan Ismael Villadolid.

Villadolid is the operations officer of the 2nd battalion of the Marine Landing Team. Attached to the Naval Task Force 62, it is tasked to implement the Coast Watch South—a strategic and ambitious master plan to guard and protect the dangerous and ecologically abundant waters of the Sulu and Celebes seas bordering Malaysia and Indonesia.

“I’m the commander here. I have a marine unit, a fleet unit, and the SEALs (the Navy’s special operations unit). They are all suited for the island,” said Capt. Joel de la Cruz.

The Naval Task Force 62 serves as the eyes and the ears of the Philippine Navy, which is the lead agency in the surveillance and the monitoring of the country's southern edge. It is also supported by the Coast Guard, the Philippine National Police Maritime Group, and the Bureau of Fisheries.

A slow day

The naval gunboat could run really fast when chasing targets. Recently, the Navy arrested 15 pirates on board a boat with a fake seal of the Marina of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). One of them is supposedly involved in the highly publicized kidnapping of foreign tourists in 2000 off Sipadan island in Malaysia.

“If there are targets, we use our fleet asset to conduct surgical operations. It has to be done fast,” said De la Cruz.

But there were no activities that morning in July. Conducting only the regular patrol, the gunboat was running slow at 14 knots per hour. The Marines took the time to nap.

Halfway toward the three-hour sea journey to the famous Sibutu Passage, the marine officers were momentarily entertained by a school of dolphins dancing in the water. After the brief spectacle, the officers went down to the cabin for a breakfast of rice and omelet. On top of the persistent drone of the engine, Captain Cruz shared to them a post-World War II history.

And then, suddenly, the radar’s flat monitor screen showed a tanker on the near horizon. Immediately recognizing it as a commercial tanker, the Marines ignored it. It was nothing to be suspicious about. Other times, the Navy men come across foreign vessels, which would normally hoist a flag as a way of saluting.

The patrol gunboat stirs into action when a vessel could not be immediately identified. It would have to go after the unidentified vessel to establish the legality of its presence. It’s a standard procedure known in the naval parlance as VBS (Visit, Board, and Search).

History of violence

In this part of the country, the responsibility of the Marines is daunting. The southern edge of the country hosts many types of criminals.

A stone’s throw away from the Malaysian coastline, the breathtaking emerald chain of islands scattered on the sea routes of Sulu is previously known, somewhat pejoratively, as the Philippines’s “backdoor.” It has been a haven for terrorists, pirates, bandits, poachers, human traffickers, smugglers, and just about all the bad people made for an action movie. The increasing incidence of poverty is not helping the situation.

This part of the country has a long history of violence. The Sultanates and colonialism of previous centuries were marked by intense political hostility. The secessionist war between the Philippines and Malaysia in the 1970s did not ease the situation.

It was only in the past decade or so when Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei warmed up to each other and conceived an economic growth area. The efforts to work together as partners to bring back the flourishing trade and commerce of years past continue.

Tawi-Tawi alone is the world’s 11th fish exporter. It is also rich in oil, gas, and minerals. The United States and Australia—two countries involved in the peace efforts in the region—are among the countries that have launched initial explorations.

The Sulu Sea is also a diver’s paradise. It’s an ecological wonder where new marine species are always being discovered. If peace could be attained, ecotourism alone is estimated to bring in an estimated P4.4 billion to the local economy.

Building up

Despite its limited resources, the Marines is hopeful that it could reverse the fate of the southern archipelago through the Coast Watch South.

Malaysia has about 26 radar stations on Borneo, a massive island also shared with Brunei and Indonesia. The Philippines, on the other hand, only has a radar system that could cover three percent of its area of about 123,000 square nautical miles.

Nevertheless, the armed forces have been able to maximize their operations. They have started upgrading it facilities.

“It’s a case of ‘build it and they will come,’ said Rodel Cruz, a former undersecretary of defense who helped oversee the blueprint for the defense reform program.

“The purpose is to establish a sea lane where legitimate business can pass [through],” added Rear Admiral Ernesto Marayag, commander of the Naval Forces of the southern region based in Zamboanga City, where the original nerve center was located.

The Coast Watch station in Zamboanga has been newly constructed inside the base of the Western Mindanao Command. The team was slowly put together and the equipment were later provided.

In Tawi-Tawi, the task force is setting its sight on the mountain peak as prime location for a radar station. They are waiting for the approval from the municipal council to lease out a land area for their use.

A smaller station is also scheduled to be completed in Tawi-Tawi’s Taganak island—which is more popular to tourists as the Turtle Island. It’s so near Malaysia that some of its residents use the ringgit currency. They’re aiming to build more stations in Palawan’s Balabac island and Sarangani’s Tinaka to monitor two other major sea routes. Ideally, each station should have eight personnel rotating on a 12-hour shift.

“The easiest part is to monitor,” said Marayag. “The most difficult is in the analyzing. When the monitoring [team] passes on info to the center [in Zamboanga], we decide whether to send interception by air or sea.”

For this, Marayag said they might soon have four or six interception fast boats that could run at a high speed of 40 knots. These boats could make it from Zamboanga to Sulu in record time of two and a half hours.

The top priority is upgrading the radar system, he added. The current radar system has an effective range of 12 nautical miles. Ideally, it should have a maximum range of 48 nautical miles.

Captain Cruz said there’s a need to upgrade their radar to a thermal-seeking FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared System) to make monitoring of targets easier. He said it's one of the necessary equipment that the Navy is expected to acquire this year.

Marayag said it is clear to the Navy that this is a long-term process starting with what little funding they have.

But they are not discouraged. The interest shown by the Australian government in providing financial backing to the plan makes the Marines optimistic. President Arroyo is expected to sign an executive order that is similar to the agreement among the countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore over the Straits of Malacca.

“Instead of the waters dividing borders, waters should bring us together,” said the former defense undersecretary Cruz.

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