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The Australian Government gifted two decommissioned Landing Craft Heavy to the Philippines Government, including a package of spare parts, following a refurbishment of new safety and navigation equipment.
Ex-HMA Ships Tarakan and Brunei were retired from Australian naval service in November 2014 and re-commissioned into the Philippines Navy as BRP Ivatan (AT298) and BRP Batak (AT299)...
The honour of being the first Commanding Officers of Ivatan and Batak will be Commander Joselito De Guzman and Lieutenant Ariel Costantino of the Philippines Navy.
The ships are named after Filipino indigenous communities with the Ivatans being an ethnolinguistic group predominant in the Batanes Islands and the Batak being one of about 70 indigenous peoples of the Philippines.
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