Philippines to Let U.S. Build Military Facilities on Bases

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-14/philippines-to-let-u-s-build-military-facilities-on-its-bases.html

The Philippines will let the U.S. build facilities inside the Southeast Asian nation’s military bases, under a pact that would boost the American troop presence there at a time of rising tensions with China.

Philippine concern about access to U.S. facilities on its bases was “sufficiently addressed” and the two countries will hold further talks later this month as they seek to wrap up an agreement, Philippine Defense Undersecretary Pio Lorenzo Batino said at a briefing in Manila today. “It’s safe to say there is already consensus” on the access issue.

The negotiations come as a territorial dispute escalates between the Philippines and China over resource-rich shoals in the South China Sea. The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, lacks the military power to deter China from contested waters rich in oil, gas and fish and has asked the United Nations to rule on disputes, a process China has rejected.

Chinese ships used water canons in January to drive Filipino fishermen away from the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said on Feb. 24. China warned off two Philippine boats near the Second Thomas Shoal this week, its Foreign Ministry said on March 10.

[jsr]

1. Pretty soon China will charge everyone an admission fee for stepping in the water

because the South China Sea now all of a sudden belongs to China. (Like the Arabian Sea belongs to Saudi Arabia, or the Gulf of Mexico belongs to Mexico, etc.)

[4Q2u2]

2. We shall return

Have we not done this before. I seem to remember being asked to leave the country sometime ago.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. They miss us. Absence makes the heart grow fonder./NT

[4Q2u2]

4. Miss us or something else?

I guess there are no more coins left in "Shit River" to be found.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. 85% of Filipino citizens have a favorable view of the United States

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/07/18/chapter-1-attitudes-toward-the-united-states/

They love us...This is one example of the eye test confirming statistical data.

Ever talk to a Filipino. I interact with them on a daily basis; Filipino ex pats in America, Filipinos in the Philippines. American ex pats in the Philippines.

They really like us.

[4Q2u2]

6. Yes

Yes I served with lots of Filipino people. They were good and admirable Shipmates and served The U S Navy with distinction and pride.
That was just my tongue in cheek expression of them maybe forgetting why we were asked to leave in the first place, which really was surprising. That absence you referred to also has a way of bad memories fading.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. I have never seen a group of people so inclined to see America in a positive light.

Well, them and the Koreans.

I know why we were asked to leave in the first place but much of that was a function of mostly young men far from home and lonely. I also think more than a few were actually looking for love and found it.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. .

[Igel]

9. Yes, and we left.

It's a prime counterexample to the "US imperialism" mantra. Once we're there, we stay forever. Just somebody *try* and ask us to leave--quickly they'd be overthrown, occupied, etc., etc.

We landed; we built; we were asked to leave; we left. It happened there; it's happened elsewhere.

Decades later they said, "Um, can you come back?" And they did so mostly for their own interests, not because we blockaded them, kidnapped the president's kids and threated to slowly skin them alive, or any such thing.