Armed Forces of The Philippines - Military Ranks - Rank Insignia

Rank Insignia

The AFP, like the military forces of Singapore and Indonesia, uses unitary rank insignia for enlisted personnel, in the form of raised chevrons increasing by seniority, save for the Philippine Air Force which uses inverted chevrons from Airman 2nd Class onward only since recently. In the Philippine Navy these are supplemented by rating insignia by specialty, similar to the United States Navy. Like the British and Spanish armed services, however, senior ranked NCOs (especially in the Philippine Navy) also wear shoulder rank insignia only on the mess, semi-dress and dress uniforms, and in some cases even collar insignia. Like the US military all NCOs wear sleeve stripes to denote years of service in the enlisted ranks. Sleeve insignia for enlisted personnel in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are similar but are different from those used in the US.

Officer ranks in the AFP are inspired by revolutionary insignia used by the Philippine Army right after the 1898 declaration of independence. These are unitary rank insigina used in the everyday, combat, duty and technical uniforms both on shoulders and collars (the latter in the khaki uniforms of the Navy), but in the semi-dress, dress and mess uniforms are different: The Army, Air Force and Marine Corps use unitary rank insignia on the shoulder board but the Navy uses the very same rank insignia format as in the US Navy except for the star (for Ensigns to Captains) in almost all officer uniforms and all general officer and flag officer shoulder boards in the full dress uniform are in gold colored backgrounds with the rank insignia and the AFP seal (the star arrangement is the same in the Army, Air Force and Marines but is different in the Navy). The Navy uses sleeve insignia only on its dress blue uniforms. Lieutenants and Captains wear 1 to 3 triangles (and Navy Ensigns and Lieutenants (junior and senior grades) in their working, duty and combat uniforms) while Majors, Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels wear 1, 2, and 3 suns (both triangles and suns have the ancient baybayin letter ka (K) in the center) as well as Navy superior officers (Lieutenant Commanders, Commanders and Captains) in their working, duty and combat uniforms respectively.