Malvar-class corvette

The Malvar class is a ship class of patrol corvettes of the Philippine Navy and are currently its oldest class of corvettes. These ships were formerly used by the US Navy as Admirable-class minesweepers, and PCE-842-class patrol craft and PCE(R)-848 class patrol craft, which were both based on the Admirable-class hull. In the Philippine Navy, the vessels have undergone upgrades and modifications, and have been re-categorized as corvettes. One ship, the ex-USN USS Quest (AM-281) was converted into a non-combatant Presidential Yacht by the Philippine Navy in 1948 as RPS Pag-asa (APO-21) (later on renamed as RPS Santa Maria, and as RPS/BRP Mount Samat)

On 10 December 2021, the remaining two ships of the class were finally decommissioned. However, supertyphoon Odette hit the Philippines just six days after their decommissioning, and so BRP Magat Salamat (PS-20) was pressed back into service "with a volunteer force composed mainly of its last crew" to serve as a temporary command post for relief operations in the severely effected Dinagat Islands.

History
The PCE class of naval ships served with the United States Navy during the Second World War.

Out of the reserved US Navy units, six were transferred to the Philippines as part of the US Military Assistance Program (PS-28 to PS-33), while five were former South Vietnamese Navy units that escaped to the Philippines in 1975.

With 40 years of active duty with the Philippine Navy, ships of this class have been involved in local and international crisis, exercises, and incidents.

Technical details
Originally the ship was armed with one 3" (76mm) L/50 dual-purpose gun, two to six Bofors 40 mm guns, 1 Hedgehog depth charge projector, four depth charge projectiles (K-guns) and two depth charge tracks.

The same configuration applied up until the late 1980s when the Philippine Navy removed most of its old anti-submarine weapons and systems, losing its already-limited ASW abilities, but installed three 20 mm Oerlikon guns and four 12.7 mm heavy machine guns, making them lighter and more suited for surface patrols.

The ship was originally powered by two Cooper Bessemer GSB-8 diesel engines, but these were replaced by two GM 12-567ATL diesel engines similar to her sister ships, with a combined rating of around 1710 bhp. These were then again replaced in the mid 1990s with two GM 12-278A diesels with a combined rating of around 2200 bhp driving two propellers. The main engines can propel the 914-ton (full load) ship to a maximum speed of around 16 kn.