Philippines looking at acquiring Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopter

The latest model of the Chinook, the CH-47F. Photo c/o US Army.

The Philippines’ ambassador to the US Amb. Jose Manuel Romualdez confirmed to local media that the US is offering Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

He said this is in addition to previous offers by the US for other helicopters including the Sikorsky S-70i Black Hawk, 16 units of which were ordered early this year under a Php12.67 billion (US$240 million) deal.

Amb. Romualdez believes that the Philippines will benefit on having Chinooks for disaster relief operations and moving troops, supplies, and equipment. He also confirmed that the AFP in general prefer American-made weapon systems because of interoperability reasons.

Philippine defense page MaxDefense Philippines mentioned that the Philippine Air Force (PAF) has an existing requirement for at least three (3) heavy lift helicopters which is being pushed to be included in the 2nd List of Horizon 2 phase of the Revised AFP Modernization Project. The PAF was said to prefer the Chinook over other heavy lift helicopter models from Europe and Russia.

The 2nd List refers to additional projects being proposed for implementation on top of the earlier Php300 billion (US$5.88 billion) Horizon 2 phase projects approved by Philippine Pres. Rodrigo Duterte for implementation last June 2018. This new phase would be dependent on availability of funds raised from government revenues.


[1] ABS-CBN News
[2] MaxDefense Philippines