The Philippine Marine Corps stood up a coastal defense regiment that looks similar to the MLR, Brady said......

 via Defense News

The U.S. Marine Corps’ first unit designed to carry out new concepts of operations conducted its first exercise in the Philippines and is now preparing to start a range of experimentation and training events this year.

The service this spring formally transformed 3rd Marine Regiment into 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, which will be organized and equipped in new and modern ways. The Corps already activated the 3rd Littoral Anti-Air Battalion under the regiment, and by this fall it will also have a combat logistics battalion and a littoral combat team.

Col. Tim Brady, who commands the 3rd MLR, said the new unit has much to learn about leveraging these battalions and a slew of subject matter experts at the headquarters level as it operates small units of Marines across wide swaths of maritime space to have an outsized effect on the enemy.

The experimentation began in early March, before the Corps formally redesignated the regiment. Last fall, the regiment conducted a service-level training event at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms, California, where it was already “starting to conduct operations quite a bit differently than what a traditional infantry regiment would,” Brady said during a panel discussion at the Modern Day Marine conference this week.

In March, just weeks after the redesignation ceremony, a portion of the MLR shipped out from Hawaii to the Philippines for the exercise Balikatan. Brady told reporters that the terrain used this year was new for the annual exercise, and was meant to challenge the MLR and its Philippine counterpart as they eye new types of operations.

The Philippine Marine Corps stood up a coastal defense regiment that looks similar to the MLR, Brady said, and the American regiment was on hand for the activation of the Philippine regiment’s new shore-based, anti-ship missile battery, similar to the MLR’s littoral combat team.

Here 

The difference?

The Philippine added a new unit to their Marine Corps...they didn't transform their entire Marine Corps to the new unit!