PN hosts WPNS Workshop this April 21 to 24

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 24): PN hosts WPNS Workshop this April 21 to 24

As a prelude to the Western Pacific Naval Symposium that will be held next year in Indonesia, the Philippine Navy (PN) hosted the WPNS Workshop which took place last April 21 to 24.

Participating were 47 delegates from different member countries, PN public affairs office chief Cmdr. Lued Lincuna said.

He added that the activity aims to discuss and develop cooperative initiatives as well as to identify those that merit further development and practice.

Also part of its objectives is to explore and develop new ways of enhancing friendship and professional cooperation at a variety of levels thus building confidence and trust for today and the future.

Moreover, the symposium is a venue for the exchange of information on a broad range of maritime matters of mutual interest and establishment and maintenance of communication lines in order to facilitate continued liaison among delegates outside of workshops and symposia.

During the workshop, Lincuna said delegates discussed about the adoption of Common Navy Protocol on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief which was initiated by the PN to provide common procedures among the Navies as reference for planning, training and conduct of HADR operations in accordance to international standards and principles which will also cover mutually-agreed standard operating procedures including organization, administrative support, planning and communications guide to be used by the participating Navies.

Also was the proposal to enhance the junior officer's interaction through various international multilateral engagements.

The output of the workshop will serve as the talking points for the chief of navies who will be attending the WPNS that will be hosted by Indonesia in 2016.

At present, the WPNS has 21 member countries such as Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, China, France, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, South Korea, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, United States and Vietnam, along with Bangladesh, India, Mexico and Pakistan as observers.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=1&sid=&nid=1&rid=755757