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Combined troops from the Philippine Marine Corps and United States Marine Corps carried out an amphibious landing along the coasts of Long Point in Barangay Aporawan, Aborlan, on Wednesday morning, as part of the ongoing Exercise Kamandag 08-24 (Kaagapay ng mga Mandirigma sa Dagat).
The amphibious assault on October 16 featured a series of activities, starting with preparatory firing from the sea to clear the landing area, followed by the beach landing of the troops and breaching of obstacles using explosives, and concluding with the assault on the main objective using fire and maneuver techniques.
“What we did today is an amphibious assault or boat raid using small boats of the Philippine Marine Corps loaded with both Philippine and US marines,” 3rd Marine Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Antonio Mangoroban said in an interview with the media after the exercise.
He also said that aside from the exercise today, other activities for Exercise Kamandag that will be held in Palawan include a counter-landing exercise featuring another live firing of weapons and small unit trainings at the Naval Base Oyster Bay, as well as Small Unmanned Aerial Systems operations in Rizal town.
Mangoroban explained that the detailed preparation for the activity took around six months to ensure it would be conducted smoothly.
“The planning, the walkthrough, from conceptualization, siguro it took us six months. But in ground preparation, dalawang araw lang,” he said.
He also stated that the activity was well coordinated with local government units, from the provincial government down to the barangay level, without encountering any issues during preparations.
“The Local Government Units were very supportive, from the provincial government down to the barangays,” he said.
“We also gathered the local community, we gathered them and talked to them, and there were no problems so far,” he added.
Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Nicholas Freeman, commanding officer of the Battalion Landing Team ⅕ of the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, said the training is an important part of the exercise, which gave the two forces the “ability to conduct an attack layering combined arms and training our forces to integrate fire to maneuver together.”
“So the two sides came together very quickly, and we were able to execute a very complex scheme of maneuver here today,” Freeman said.
He also explained that the purpose of the activity was to have an opportunity for the two military units “to come together and learn from each other, and training is very valuable to us. So that’s where we are getting at with this exercise.”