Encounter at Rizal Reef – BRP Conrado Yap vs. Liupanshui, April 2020

The BRP Conrado Yap (PS-39) Corvette of the Philippine Navy (PN). Photo by the Philippine News Agency (PNA)

In April 2020, two anonymous Philippine Government Officials leaked to the Associated Press (AP) News Organization that an incident occurred between the Naval Ships of the Philippines and China.¹

The Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Western Command, Vice Admiral Rene Medina subsequently provided more details of what happened,² so time to take a look at the whole incident.

The BRP Conrado Yap (PS-39) Corvette of the Philippine Navy

The Chungju (PCC-762) Pohang class Corvette of the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN). Photo by u/RPBot thru Reddit

I first wrote about the Philippine Navy's (PN) acquisition of a Pohang class Corvette from the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) back in June 2014,¹ and the news then was that it was expected to the delivered by the end of 2014. Well the “by the end of 2014” stretched out to four years and eight months because the first Pohang Corvette was finally commissioned into service by the PN only in August of this year (2019).²

On a positive note, the very long delay did mean we got a newer ship instead of an older one. The ship that we got was the former Chungju (PCC-762), part of the Flight III Batch of the Pohang Corvettes which was commissioned in 1987 by the ROKN and then retired in 2016.³