September 3,2008:  The Philippines recently lost one of its two C-130 transports in an accident. They also have two F-27 Fokker transports, but they are heavily used, and can only carry half as many troops (the C-130 can carry 92 troops or 20 tons of cargo). With a sudden increase in military operations in the Moslem south, sending new troops down there by ship simply takes too long. So the Filipinos are doing what most other nations (including the United States) end up doing, and chartering commercial aircraft to move the troops.