Before Congress abrogated the 1947 RP-US Military Bases Agreement (MBA) the maintenance of most of the country’s defense equipment depended on the American logistics system. Some combatant ships and aircrafts were sent overseas for depot maintenance. Most spares came in handy with a robust supply system. In the 1960s the nation’s air force, with its Blue Diamond unit, and navy, with its anti-submarine capability, were one of the best in Southeast Asia. Access to the American Foreign Military Sales and Financing in the 1970s and beyond was easy. Selected AFP personnel underwent specialized training abroad and the regular bilateral exercises kept our military units abreast with external defense operations.

With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and the termination of the MBA in 1992, the Americans reduced their troop deployment overseas and transferred their forces elsewhere. The departure from the Philippines of the allied troops practically shut down the logistics support of the country’s aging air and naval fleet assets and reduced the opportunities for both individual and unit training thereby affecting defense readiness and sustainability. The consequent AFP modernization proposal was only considered in 1995 when China occupied Panganiban Reef (Mischief Reef). At that time many military assets had already deteriorated due to lack of maintenance.

When Vice Admiral Eduardo Mario Santos took the helm of the Philippine Navy in late 1996, he advanced his leadership blueprint- “Future Directions of the Philippine Navy at the Turn of the Century.” He identified key areas of naval modernization like fields of specialization, naval warfare development, and ship acquisition. Upon his retirement in October 1999, Vice Admiral Luisito Fernandez took over and focused on strengthening the Navy’s “culture of maintenance” that complemented Admiral Santos’ blueprint. The two admirals effectively set the stage for navy modernization in accordance with Republic Act No. 7898, or the AFP Modernization Act of 1995.

Admiral Santos initiated the acquisition and eventually the deployment to the combatant commands of 3 used Royal Navy (Peacock-class) offshore patrol vessels later renamed as Jacinto-class patrol ships. They were intended to be transition platforms to prepare Filipino sailors for more modern combatants. Admiral Fernandez, on the other hand, worked for rehabilitation and maintenance of existing naval assets mostly acquired from the United States, especially the logistics support vessels, WW2 patrol and cargo ships, and the smaller fast gunboats built in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Likewise, the South Korean government donated more than a dozen used fast attack craft in mid-90s. Many of these combatants are still in the service and the new arrivals from US, Australia, Indonesia, and South Korea will certainly need a comprehensive maintenance program to keep them running. For one reason or another the modernization program did not generate enough support from the political leaders until 17 years later with the enactment of the Revised AFP Modernization Law of 2012, or the Republic Act No. 10349.

I spent my last shipboard assignment as Captain of a Cannon-class destroyer escort and upon installation I articulated my vision: to see the ship operational long after my retirement. I paid close attention to unit training and maintenance of ship armaments, propulsion machineries and superstructure. Seventeen (17) years later that ship had to be decommissioned for material wear and tear, a good 74 years after keel laying. I consider my captainship of that vessel and 3 others a personal achievement having attained at least 80% ready-for-sea status, or operational availability, affording me a rare opportunity to visit 81 ports, anchorages and “lying to” areas nationwide including the West Philippine Sea. I view my 3-year stint in PCG’s Aids to Navigation Unit, where I joined in many maintenance missions and drafted a manual for field maintenance and installation teams, as a great learning experience in protecting and preserving government assets located in far-flung areas.

The succeeding navy chiefs spent lot of effort to maintain the fleet combatants. Even with renewed engagement with US in 1998, it took a full decade after the turn of the century for the navy to receive refurbished and new ships from US, Australia, Indonesia and South Korea. Unlike the ships acquired when MBA was still in effect, the procurement of newly-acquired assets have been funded solely by Filipino taxpayers. Thus, the Philippine Navy is duty bound to keep those ships running through proper maintenance to ensure their functioning, minimize the cost of repairing, and provide a safe environment for the users.

Government assets, whether a facility or an equipment, fulfill administrative and social needs of the people and represent a significant chunk of public expenditure. The military and other agencies have large inventories of expensive equipment that require constant upkeep, and in some instances the need to update activities for their efficient, continuous and uninterrupted operation. With rising costs of replacing a facility or equipment, it is much better to simply repair them in a timely manner. As Kurt Vonnegut Jr. observed: “Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

Purchasing expensive facilities and equipment entails a “cradle to grave” outlook that focuses on costs from inception, and service life to disposal stage. For naval weapons systems, the cost categories include research and development (R&D), investment, operations and sustainment, and disposal. R&D involves all activities necessary to approve the expenditure on the chosen system. Investment refers to all activities required to put the system into service. Operations and sustainment take into account all activities vital in the operation, maintenance, supply and deployment support of the system. Disposal is the planning and management of the demilitarization and removal of the system from the service.

The costs associated with operations, maintenance and sustaining support vary depending on the type and quantity of the system. For ships, the rule of thumb is that 40% of the total life cycle cost goes to system acquisition while 20-30% represents the system’s maintenance cost. The remainder is spent on operational, sustaining support and disposal costs. Of these 3 major cost components, maintenance cost is the probably the only one that could be projected because the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) provides the scheduled maintenance activities.

Maintenance is a combination of technical and administrative actions to be taken to preserve or protect a system or equipment to function properly. It aims to remove potential equipment failure, deterioration, stoppages and breakdown. Maintenance activities covers detection, inspection, troubleshooting, prevention, testing and calibration, overhaul, and replacement of parts, components or assemblies. With sophistication in technology and business decision-making several maintenance approaches emerged: reliability centered, total productive and business entered. Due to the nature of their operational environment military equipment must be subjected to reliability centered maintenance (RCM).

Maintenance culture defines the values, way of thinking, behavior, perception and underlying assumptions of any person or group to improve the skills, tenacity and diligence in maintaining a system. Culture drives behavior. In turn, behavior influences the quality of work fundamental in system reliability. Reliability enhances efficiency and cuts operational costs.

When an organization’s maintenance culture is not good it is characterized by indifference, blame, frustration, distrust, waste of time, pessimism, crises, aging work order backlogs, frequent unscheduled maintenance events, and tension between operations and maintenance. When things go sour as expected, some decision makers even adopt the “denial syndrome” exemplified by outright disavowal, rationalization, lip service, but panic at the thought of command responsibility.

To establish a good maintenance culture there should be continuous effort and management commitment to improve proficiency and increase expertise through orientation and reorientation, allocate sufficient maintenance budget, and most importantly, guard against corruption. Other concerns must also be addressed: selecting the right people, investment, measurement, machine readiness, planning, scheduling, and general organization.

Some studies identify the components that greatly influence maintenance culture: responsibility, laws and their concomitant rules, knowledge, training, awareness, enforcement of policies, organizational management approaches, management commitment, policy, personality and attitude, operating system organization, culture trend, motivation, leadership, and mind set.

With renewed energy to pursue the AFP Modernization Program where bulk of the budget allocation goes to acquisition of weapons systems it would be enlightening to recall the words of one Philippine Marine Commandant when directed to increase the number of marine brigades: “Allow me first to fully assess the implications of additional units in terms of organization, training, equipage and maintenance, and their costs.”

Indeed, unless the nation is about to fall, operational requirements must take into account the costs involved. And the cost of maintenance is one of the key factors to be considered. Maritime forces may revisit their capability acquisition goals, objectives, and strategies with due regard to maintenance and Philippine societal needs amidst participation in international covenants of alliance.