「平時不燒香，臨時抱[美利堅]佛腳」、咎由自取的菲律賓人現在正在亡羊補牢，但還是死要面子(中)
[提醒或建議: 本文篇幅不短，不習慣閱讀英文的鄉親或網友請跳過英文]
三
我們把話題拉回現在的菲律賓。
4/28/2014，歐巴馬抵達馬尼拉，進行訪問，在他抵達前數小時，一項名為The Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement的行政協議被敲定(這是行政協議，不是條約，無需兩國的立法機關的批准)。
菲律賓人民與台灣人民是兩個近年來犯了不可原諒的錯誤、自作孽不可活的人民，一個可悲的人民就是台灣住民，說清楚些，就是那些支持或投票給馬英九的選民，那些選民除了一些本來就是活得不耐煩的、親中賣台的敗類之外，其餘都是令人難以理解的選民，那些令人難以理解的選民也許根本都知道馬英九是個傾中賣台敗類，但是他們還是要把票投給他，他們都是不見棺材不流淚、自尋死路的人，由於他們犯錯，讓台灣踏入險境，在傾中賣台敗類治理下，台灣隨時都有亡於中國之手的危險。另一個可笑的人民是沒有能預見中國這個「新邪惡帝國」的竄起會給他們帶來禍害的短視菲律賓人民，他們在1992年硬是把鎮守西太平洋的美軍給趕走，他們以為這樣就可以揚眉吐氣，就可以從此擺脫「美帝」的陰影，從此可以站起來，從此可以不再需要Uncle Sam的保護了，從此他們就都成為有尊嚴的菲律賓人了，但不過十來年，就證明當年那些菲律賓人多數只是一群被歷史嘲笑的蠢蛋。
建州運動先請鄉親們讀美國這一方面關於歐巴馬菲律賓之行的報導，我們挑選「華爾街日報」的報導做為代表。
“Manila Welcomes U.S. Defense Pact”
By Trevor Moss
The Wall Street Journal
4/26/2014
MANILA—Opposition to American military involvement in the Philippines forced Washington to abandon what once was its largest overseas Navy base, Subic Bay, in 1992, along with the rest of its military network in the country.
Now, more than two decades later, Manila is urging Washington to come back, and not just to Subic.
That change of heart, driven by worsening fears over China's military rise, forms the backdrop to President Barack Obama's two-day trip to Manila starting Monday, the first by a U.S. president since 2003.
The centerpiece of the trip is expected to be the signing of a new Agreement on Enhanced Defense Cooperation that would pave the way for U.S. forces to return to the Philippines, albeit on a rotational basis. After nine months of negotiations, Manila and Washington announced in early April that they had produced a draft of the agreement, fueling expectations that the pact would be formally signed during Mr. Obama's visit.
While details of the size and locations of any U.S. deployments haven't yet been made public, the Philippine government has stressed that it wouldn't turn back the clock to the days when the U.S. military ran its own installations here. The Philippine Senate tore up its long-standing security treaty with the U.S. in September 1991, effectively ordering the Americans to wind up their extensive military bases in the country.
With foreign bases now banned by the national constitution, U.S. forces would instead be granted access to existing Philippine bases, over which Manila will retain ultimate control. The U.S. would be able to build new facilities on existing bases to store humanitarian and disaster relief equipment.
Although there is a 700-strong U.S. counterterrorism unit active in the southern Philippines as part of a post-9/11 agreement, it is only allowed in an advisory role.
There is still some resistance to bringing the Americans back in bigger numbers. Some of the nationalist politicians who lobbied to oust the U.S. two decades ago haven't changed their views, and some constitutional experts question the legality of any potential new pact. Small-scale antiwar protests are expected during Mr. Obama's visit.
U.S. officials said not to expect any influx of additional American troops after the agreement is signed. Any larger American presence is likely months or even years away. "We are not moving back in," one official said.
Washington also faces a tricky balancing act in returning to the Philippines, since it doesn't want to provoke China, which has overlapping territorial claims with the Philippines in the South China Sea.
Public opinion has shifted toward greater support for a U.S. presence in the Philippines as Manila's relationship with Beijing has soured. China has become more assertive in the region, and Beijing and Manila have been locked in a dispute over the Scarborough and Ayungin shoals in the Spratly Islands. China insists that it is merely defending its sovereignty, arguing that it has a centuries-old claim to the South China Sea that Manila can't match. Beijing has refused to participate in a U.N. tribunal initiated by Manila to resolve the impasse.
[以下的內容只出現在4/25/2014「華爾街日報」的網站上，沒有出現在4/26/2014的平面媒體上。]
"Ordinary people in the Philippines have already accepted that China is the threat, and that they took the U.S. for granted," said Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Institute of Political and Electoral Reform in Manila. "The expectation is that the U.S. will act as a deterrent."
In February, Social Weather Stations, a Philippine polling company, reported that trust in America was up to a record plus-82—a net figure that measures the percentage of people who trust the U.S., minus the percentage of people who don't. That was up from a low of plus-19 in 2004. Views of China have become overwhelmingly negative, falling to minus-17, from a peak of plus-19 in 2009, before the South China Sea issue flared.
The same poll also found that 93% of Filipinos wanted their government to take tougher action against China in defense of national sovereignty.
Many Filipinos are hopeful the U.S. won't confine its activities to Subic Bay, and will also consider deploying personnel or equipment to other sites. They include Oyster Bay, on the ribbonlike island of Palawan just outside the so-called nine-dash line marking Beijing's maritime claims, as well as what once was Clark Air Base in Central Luzon and a possible Marine command post at a place called Brooke's Point in southern Palawan.
Last year, the Philippine military announced plans to spend 313 million pesos ($7 million) upgrading Naval Station Carlito Cunanan, a small Philippine Navy outpost at Oyster Bay, so that it could accommodate up to four naval frigates and, potentially, U.S. military personnel.
People familiar with the workings of the base said the upgrade program had yet to begin, though they expressed hope the U.S. defense agreement would expedite matters. As part of a recent exercise, a team of Seabees—U.S. Navy engineers—joined Philippine Navy personnel to build a two-classroom annex for the local elementary school, handing it over in February.
The Philippine Department of National Defense and the U.S. Embassy in Manila declined to comment.
"Anything that brings American troops to Puerto Princesa or Palawan is a welcome thing," said Edward S. Hagedorn, the former mayor of Puerto Princesa, the provincial capital of Palawan. Residents feel vulnerable as China presses its claims to nearby islands, he said.
At Subic Bay, meanwhile, anticipation is rising that American military personnel could once again be present in significant numbers, rather than simply passing through on occasional port calls, as they have in recent years.
The abrupt U.S. departure in 1992 left a void that Subic—then wholly dependent on base income—has struggled to fill. The residents of Olongapo City, where Subic is situated, are still bitter that the Americans, who provided some 25,000 local jobs, were forced to leave.
"The anti-U.S. base people complained, but where were they afterwards when we were going hungry?" asked Olongapo Mayor Rolen C. Paulino.
Subic has been repurposed as a free-trade zone, comprising shipbuilding and maintenance operations, a container port, and other businesses.
Yet dilapidated warehouses with peeling paintwork and long-broken windows still characterize areas of the once-sprawling facility. Cubi Point, formerly a naval air station servicing hundreds of fighter jets and which the U.S. Navy demolished a mountain to build, sits forlorn and unused, except for an occasional light aircraft whirring through.
Nevertheless, Roberto Garcia, chairman of the Subic Bay Municipal Authority, said that an American presence was now mainly desirable from a security, rather than a financial, standpoint.
"This is a crisis situation right now," he said of the pressure being applied by the Chinese, noting that Scarborough Shoal is only 120 miles from Subic Bay.
接下來，我們來讀菲律賓方面的報導，我們以The Manila Standard Today這份報紙的報導為代表。
“PH, US okay new deal”
By Francisco Tuyay
The Manila Standard Today
Apr. 28, 2014 at 12:01am
Defense pact to be signed hours before Obama visit
THE Philippines said Sunday it would sign a 10-year agreement with the United States today to allow a greater US military presence on its territory amid its bitter territorial dispute with China.
A statement from the Defense Department on Sunday said the signing would take place in Manila on Monday morning, a few hours before US President Barack Obama was due to arrive for a two-day visit.
Quoting Philippine government sources, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua added that the 10-year defense pact, finalized after eight rounds of talks that began in August 2013, grants US troops access to designated Philippine military facilities, the right to construct facilities, and pre-position equipment, aircraft and vessels, but rules out permanent basing.
Sources said the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement will be signed as an executive agreement, meaning it will not require congressional ratification because it is not a treaty.
There is no definite number on the entry of visiting troops, they added.
Earlier this month, after the eighth round of negotiations for the agreement, Defense Undersecretary and chairman of the Philippine negotiating panel Pio Lorenzo Batino said the two sides found consensus on key points of the agreement.
Batino said the agreement states that US access to and use of Armed Forces of the Philippines’ facilities and areas will be “at the invitation of the Philippines and with full respect for Philippine Constitution and Philippine laws.” [死到臨頭，還死要面子]
The pact will also indicate that the United States will not establish a permanent military presence or base in the Philippines. Besides that, the United States has also agreed that any equipment and material that its military will bring into the country will not include nuclear weapons, Batino said.
For decades, the US maintained large military bases in Clark and Subic Bay until Congress voted to close them down in 1991.
American forces returned to the country eight years later under the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which was ratified by the Senate in 1999 to govern the temporary stay of US forces for joint training with the Philippine military.
The framework agreement will top today’s agenda when Obama, on the last leg of a four-nation Asian tour, meets President Benigno Aquino III in Malacañang.
Obama, who is scheduled to arrive at about 1:30 p.m. Monday, will be received by Philippine officials at Villamor Air Base and will proceed to Malacanang for the meeting of two heads of states.
Defense officials said ahead of the meeting, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and US Ambassador Philip Goldberg would sign the EDCA at the Armed Forces Officers Club at 10 a.m.
The officials said the EDCA would be completely different from the VFA, which focuses only on joint military exercises and does not cover the positioning of US fighter jets and ships in selected Philippine military bases.
The signing of the defense accord comes at a time when the Philippines is embroiled in a heated territorial dispute with China in the oil-rich West Philippine Sea.
A Palace official said Sunday that Obama’s visit is aimed at strengthening strategic relations between the United States and the Philippines.
Presidential Communication Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said when President Aquino and President Obama meet, they will talk about bilateral relations on three major fronts.
These will focus on strengthening political and security cooperation; expanding trade and investments, tourism and development cooperation; and, on deepening people-to-people ties, Coloma said.
The country already has strong ties with the US as there are an estimated 2.27 million Filipinos living in the United States, while some 670,000 tourists from the US visited the Philippines in 2013.
In economic development, the partnership is focused on meeting the Millennium Development Goals.
He said this is through direct economic assistance and improving public infrastructure, achieving significant poverty reduction, and supporting the administration’s good governance and anti-corruption agenda.
Armed Forces officials said key units would be put on blue alert for Obama’s visit. Under a blue alert, the military can quickly mobilize 50 percent of its strength, should the need arise.
The Armed Forces Joint Task Force-NCR (National Capital Region), on the other hand, will be on red alert as it supports the Philippine National Police and the Presidential Security Group, the lead agency in securing Obama’s visit.
Red alert means all available officers and men of the joint task force must report immediately to their respective places of assignment.
The US Secret Service contingent has been in the Philippines since April 21 to oversee the security arrangements. – With AFP, PNA
四
由於美國在南海與東海島嶼主權的爭端中，都表示中立的立場，美國的堅持只是聲索各造必須以和平方式解決爭端，以及美國要維持這兩個海域的海上與空中航行的自由，但這樣也給實力較強的中國可趁之機。中國可以長期及持續地使用「戰爭邊緣」的手段，來逐一蠶食這兩個海域的島嶼或島礁，總之，美國若沒有更進一步的積極與有效的作為，到最後，東海與南海都會變成中國的內湖，東亞各國，特別是菲律賓與日本，它們都看出了美國的政策最後都會是失敗的政策。
美國想來想去，可能已覺得它的政策必須調整，否則最後會一敗塗地，在今年四月間，美國軍方的人士先後發出較為明確與強硬的訊息，目的是為了對北京與共軍進行嚇阻。
在今年四月間，美國軍方的人士先後發出較為明確與強硬的訊息，他們當然是得到政府高層的許可。
在俄羅斯兼併克里米亞之後，歐洲各國與東亞國家都在質疑美國的承諾與決心，美國政府再不加碼發出較強烈的訊號，再不做出更明確的承諾，「大美和平」(Pax Americana)就會瓦解。
我們先請鄉親們讀”The Diplomat”的一篇文章。
