Makati city: Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri has expressed interest in forging a strategic industrial partnership with the Philippines to enhance the country’s underwater defense and security capabilities. “Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean Sea are really very similar with a lot of commonality. Fincantieri really would like to be a strategic industrial partnership for the Philippines to protect our ocean,” Fincantieri Naval Vessels Division Area Manager Aurora Buzzo stated at a Stratbase ADR Institute forum in Makati City on Wednesday.
According to Philippines News Agency, Fincantieri, in collaboration with Germany’s thyssenkrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), was previously selected as the manufacturer for the Philippines’ first-ever submarines, part of the country’s ongoing Armed Forces modernization program aimed at enhancing maritime deterrence. Beyond submarines, Buzzo highlighted the firm’s extensive product range, which includes unmanned vehicles and advanced subsea drone systems capable of safeguarding critical underwater infrastructure such as gas pipelines and undersea cables.
Buzzo further noted that as a partly government-owned entity, Fincantieri can provide flexible financing options to countries like the Philippines, offering to finance up to 100 percent of a project’s contract value with a facilitated payment plan. “We are fully committed to support a financial package for all our projects, especially eventually and hopefully here in the Philippines,” she said, adding that meetings could be arranged with the Philippine Navy, Ministry of Defense, and Finance to explore financial package options.
Fincantieri has also introduced the DEEP project, its first integrated subsea drone system, featuring a network of sensors for early warnings and a fleet of unmanned underwater vehicles. Buzzo emphasized the system’s flexibility and its ability to adapt to military security tasks, commercial infrastructure protection, or environmental monitoring.
In the same forum, Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, Rear Adm. Roy Vincent Trinidad, expressed Manila’s openness to discussing potential undersea domain cooperation with partners, including Fincantieri. “Although this is under the purview of the Department of Defense, we are looking at manned and unmanned systems, not solely on submarine per se,” he commented.
Trinidad emphasized the importance of securing the country’s undersea cables, noting that it remains a “new capability” and an “unexplored ground” for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Most related efforts are currently focused on policy discussions and exercises with like-minded navies, including the United States.
Italian Ambassador to the Philippines Davide Giglio remarked that Rome sees underwater infrastructure protection as a promising area for Italy-Philippines cooperation. “As an archipelagic nation with vast maritime resources and strategic interests, the Philippines faces both challenges and opportunities in enhancing its underwater and maritime capabilities,” Giglio said, expressing Italy’s readiness to share experience, support capacity building efforts, and promote projects that link the Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific.
