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EDITORIAL |
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Now is Noynoy’s chance to play hardball with China now that a Filipino fisherman has died after a fishing boat was supposedly rammed by what the Filipino boat crew identified as Chinese in an incident that happened very close to Scarborough Shoal where a standoff ensued between Philippine and Chinese vessels over rival territorial claims.
The incident happened well within Philippine territory, off Bolinao, Pangasinan, where there was no reason for a Chinese vessel to be present in the area, much more for it to ram a Filipino vessel.
It seems that without American imprimatur, Noynoy cannot act on his own in defending the country’s boundaries.
The standoff at Scarborough Shoal happened shortly after Noynoy received the Philippine Navy’s first decent warship for ages, a decommissioned cutter of the US Coast Guard, which was named BRP Gregorio del Pilar. As soon as the cutter arrived in the country, it sailed off to the disputed shoal to supposedly arrest Chinese fishermen who have long been using the shoal along with their Filipino counterparts without any trouble.
The sudden appearance of a Navy warship in the disputed area touched off heated diplomatic exchanges between the Philippines and China, with both sides maintaining the presence of government-owned vessels in the area..... MORE
Source: The Daily Tribune
URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20120627com1.html
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