BRP Tejeros
BRP Tanza
BRP Kawit
BRP Noveleta
In 1898, in order to increase their capabilities against the Spanish naval supremacy in the Philippines, the Revolutionary Navy requested help from the Italian government. Help came in form of BRP
Tejeros, a Giuseppe-Garibaldi class armored cruiser whose construction was personally paid by the Italian prime minister Luigi Pelloux, a close friend of both Jose Rizal and Emilio Aguinaldo.
The delivery of the ship was halted by the Spanish government in 1898 and the ship, together with 2 other battleships ordered from Great Britain, was allowed to cross the Suez Canal in 1899, after peace was concluded. They arrived on Manila on 1899 and was commissioned to the newly established Philippine Navy. The ship's homeport is Corregidor.
US naval threats in 1902 forced the Philippines to purchase 3 more ships from Italy, which arrived on 1905. The ships were deployed to Hongkong, Nagasaki, Busan, and Vladivostok together with the 2 pre-dreadnoughts as a show of force against US.
The ships were deployed to Bismarck Archipelago during World War 1 and served the Navy throughout the Years of Depression, when the ships were mothballed due to increasing maintaining costs because of their age. They were reactivated after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and fought relentlessly against the invading Japanese forces. The remaining forces of the Philippine Navy fled to Corregidor, and the Japanese Navy attacked seaward. The ships were damaged by cannon fires and later bombs, 2 ships were sank by May 9, 1942, while the other two successfully fled to Australia. The remaining ships fought alongside the US Navy during the final phases of the War, and they returned to Manila in 1945. Both ships received battle gold stars and other honors and were decommissioned in 1948. BRP Tanza was laid up in 1955 as a museum ship.