Q and A Spratly Islands’ conundrum:” We should play the Philippines Card” – De Venecia

In a recent article of the Global Times published by the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, the tabloid exhorted China to punish economically the Philippines because of its recent military dialogues with the United States to host a more regular and much bigger military exercises on her territory.Former five-time House Speaker Jose de Venecia, Jr., an imminent connoisseur of geo-politics, was interviewed by Mortz C. Ortigoza, political columnist of Northern Watch, on the Chinese’s threatening belligerence towards the Philippines and the East Asian Countries who have claims on the Spratlys and other island territories in the South China Sea (SCS), the United States growing presence in the SCS, and the debt crises at the European Union in the face of the forthcoming election in France and the volatile political coalition in Germany. Excerpts:

MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA (MCO): Mainland China’s president Hu Jintao recently said war is imminent between China and the United States, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Radio Commentator Mortz Ortigoza and former Philippines
House of Representatives' 5-Time Speaker in one of their
huddles that usually zero's on international  affairs.

JOSE DE VENECIA (JDV): Well, in the first place I don’t know whether it was true Hu Jintao made that statement that war is imminent against the U.S, Philippine, and Vietnam.

MCO: I read that in the internet an article entitled “China prepares for war over South China Sea Spratly Islands” after Hu reacted, in a speech he delivered at a military industrial complex in China, to U.S President Obama’s announcement in January 5, 2011 on a new military strategy in Asia as Vietnam and the Philippines were acrimonious on China’s incessant and aggressive encroachment in the Spratlys. 

JDV: I don’t think there will be war in the South China Sea.

MCO: How strategic is the SCS to the U.S and the claimant nations in South East Asia like the Philippines?

JDV: Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Philippines, Brunei and so to address to the U.S and the Europeans to insure an untrammeled navigation of the South China Sea that is their main concern because of the oiltankers of Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Taiwan would pass through these Spratlys in going to the Malacca Straits, going through the Andaman Sea, going toward the Indian Ocean, going toward the Arabian Sea. Imagine that our ship through Manila bring this (oil) through Corregidor. We don’t have tankers (to pass) to the front yard and backyard.

 MCO:President Barrack Obama has just decided to reduce the United States troops in Europe by transferring them in South East Asia like the Philippines and Vietnam, Guam, and Australia to buttress the U.S Military presence there. How did you see this latest U.S policy?