Former Navy Flag Officer in Command Vice Adm. Ronald Joseph Mercado defended on Monday the position of the Navy’s technical working group (TWG) in pushing for Thales Tacticos of Netherlands as contractor for the combat management system (CMS) of the military’s frigate acquisition project, saying it is for the best interest of the Navy.
“I don’t think my people will look kindly at me. I was the flag officer in command, [am I not]? I gave them instructions to follow the contract. They were raising [something], and yet, I will not support them, it will not look good,” he said.
While Mercado and the members of the TWG have pushed for the Thales Tacticos, the Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), which bagged the P18-billion contract for the delivery of the two brand-new frigates, selected Naval Shield of Hanwha Thales of South Korea as the CMS contractor.
According to Party-list Rep. Gary C. Alejano of Magdalo and even by the Navy’s TWG, the CMS capability of the South Korean contractor is inferior to the program of Thales Tacticos.
Alejano added the “Hanwha Thales Joint Venture that developed the Naval Shield CMS was already dissolved as early as August of 2016, or way before the signing of the contract. But the contractor continues to refer to it as Hanwha Thales, which Thales protested.”
It was Alejano who put forward the controversy surrounding the CMS project for the frigate acquisition program following the relief of Mercado as Navy chief.
Defense Secretary Delfin N. Lorenzana relieved Mercado of his post after claiming he had lost confidence over the former navy chief, whom he had charged of insubordination for holding his line for Thales Tacticos, which had reportedly resulted in the delay of the project.
The Senate minority bloc has pushed for the investigation of the frigate acquisition project, which the defense department, through its spokesman, Arsenio Andolong, has welcomed.
Mercado said that if the Navy is going to acquire frigates, then it should go for the best since it has the money, other than following the contract that was borne out of years of studies and evaluation.
“Other navies, obviously go to systems that are proven…you spend so much and then it is a failure, and that’s a combat ship. If you want our country to be defended well, to the people, at least they have that assurance that our ship can fight,” he said.
Lorenzana said earlier that the contract with HHI has empowered the contractor to choose the company that will deliver the CMS for the frigates that it will build and deliver to the Navy.
Reports earlier claimed that Presidential Assistant to the President Christopher Go pushed for Thales South Korea, but this was denied by the defense department and even Mercado.
They maintained that Go never intervened in the project.