ZAMBOANGA, PHILIPPINES – Seventeen (17) personnel from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) and four (4) students from the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) - Port Police Division have underwent a six-week intensive Boarding Officer Course (BOC) training in Zamboanga on 20 December 2019.

The intensive BOC training aims to standardize and professionalize the boarding operations methods for personnel assigned onboard PCG floating assets. It also aims to ensure the proper enforcement of boarding procedures and protocols to prevent any untoward incident at sea. 

The participants were taught on sea-based related laws and mandates on fisheries, customs and tariff, drug enforcement, and anti-trafficking of persons.

They also underwent exercises on gun safety, handling and marksmanship, boarding preparations and procedures; visit, board, search and seizure; arresting techniques; vessel safety enforcement inspection; and evidence tagging and gathering.

As part of the PCG modernization program, unarmed defensive tactics were also introduced to the participants like striking, takedowns / ground training, and baton / knife fighting during the training.

Finally, the participants were trained on actual boarding on various confiscated vessels such as localized jungkong (a single-hulled motorized wooden speedboat designed to cut through shallow water), lantsa (motorized wooden hull cargo launch), and steel-hulled cargo vessels, as well as an opportunity to assess and deal with operations depending on arising situations to be encountered.

During the culmination ceremony graced by the Captain Giovanni Bergantin of the PCG District Southwestern Mindanao, a simulation exercise and skills demonstration were performed by the students. 

The six-week intensive BOC training course is modelled from consolidated training modules and program of instruction from Comprehensive Security Response to Terrorism course at the Daniel K Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, Japan Coast Guard-Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and other various foreign trainings attended by the PCG.