Philippine Navy
naval warfare branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines
The Philippine Navy (PN) (Filipino: Hukbong Dagat ng Pilipinas, lit. 'Army of [the] Sea of [the] Philippines') is the naval warfare service branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. It has an estimated strength of 24,500 active service personnel, including the 10,300-strong Philippine Marine Corps. It operates 96 combat vessels, 21 support vessels, 26 manned aircraft and 8 unmanned aerial vehicles. Tracing its roots from the Philippine Revolutionary Navy on May 20, 1898, while its modern foundations were created during the creation of the Offshore Patrol on February 9, 1939, the PN is currently responsible for naval warfare operations and maritime patrol missions within the Philippine Waters, as well as ensuring the protection of the Philippine's maritime interests, including the West Philippine Sea and Benham Rise.
It shares the responsibility of patrolling the maritime borders with the Philippine Coast Guard, a formerly attached unit which became a separate maritime law enforcement agency in 1998. The PN is also responsible for anti-piracy missions on the Sulu Sea, and also deploys naval assets for humanitarian assistance operations in the aftermath of disasters. The PN's headquarters is located in Naval Station Jose Andrada in Manila, and is currently led by the Flag Officer-in-Command of the Philippine Navy, who holds the rank of Vice Admiral.
History
Pre-colonial period
Before the Spaniards arrived in the Philippines the ancient native people were already engaging in naval warfare, raiding, trade, piracy, travel and communication using various vessels including balangay. A flotilla of balangay was discovered in the late 1970s in Butuan, Agusan del Norte.
Native Visayan warships, such as the Karakoa or Korkoa, were of excellent quality and some of them were used by the Spaniards in expeditions against rebellious tribes and Dutch and British forces.
“Philippine Navy” enters the record as naval warfare branch of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Philippine, Navy and naval can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3546162. VIAF identifies the subject as 157106911. The Library of Congress control number is n80112325. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898, 1939 and 1998.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philippine Navy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.