Why Should Philippines trust China?
China asked the Philippines to have access for Panganiban reef as their fishermen's shelter in Palawan province during stormy days. Since China and the Philippines maintain mutual trusts, the Philippine government allowed them to fish in the Philippine waters and used the Panganiban reef (Mischief Reef) then later china ban the Philippines from entering Panganiban reef and converted the place into china's military garrison in Palawan. This incident triggered a question if the Philippines should continue trusting china or not.
The previous years, Philippines start banning Chinese fishermen after the incident in Palawan province where the guns of china in Panganiban reef are now aiming towards Palawan inside the Philippine territory. The mutual trusts of the Philippines to china ended into invasion.
Last year, the Philippine Coast Guard while continue patrolling the country's Exclusive Economic Zone, a group of Chinese ships found harvesting endangered marine species in Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) which Philippine Coast Guard supposed to board the illegal fishermen's ship but china government blocked the Philippine government ended into standoff.
Both the Philippines and China agreed to leave the shoal for peace but later then china returned back to Panatag Shoal and blocked the access of the Philippines in its territory then controlled the shoal shoooeing away Filipino fishermen.
China is so determined in invading and bullying the Philippines that even claimed that the Philippines is part of china as said in their Government Television.
With the series of incidents of china's aggression, should the Philippines maintained mutual trusts with china?
Push for peace, China tells Philippines
China on Thursday urged the Philippines to work for regional peace after Manila revived plans to build new air and naval bases at Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base that American forces could use to counter China's creeping presence in the disputed South China Sea.
The bases would allow the Philippines to station warships and fighter jets just 124 nautical miles from Scarborough Shoal, a contentious area of the South China Sea now controlled by China after a tense standoff last year.
"China urges the Philippines and regional countries to meet one another halfway, make joint efforts to maintain mutual trust between countries, make positive efforts towards regional peace and security and play a constructive role," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news conference in Beijing.
The Philippine navy, whose resources and battle capabilities are no match for China's growing naval might, has yet to formally present its 10-billion-peso (230 million U.S. dollars) base development plan to President Benigno Aquino.
But senior officials say they believe it has a strong chance of winning approval as Aquino seeks to upgrade the country's decrepit forces.
There is no plan to allow the United States to rebuild its old bases, a sensitive issue in the Philippines where a nationalist backlash against the U.S. military helped lead to the 1992 closure of Subic and Clark Air Base.
New Philippine air and naval bases, however, would give visiting U.S. warships more security to launch operations in the South China Sea and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. A Visiting Forces Agreement, ratified by the Philippine Senate in 1999, allows U.S. forces full access to Philippine bases.
With report from ABS-CBN News
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