Philippines Versus China: Naval Confrontation at Spratly Islands
Philippines had sent it’s biggest battleships to the Spratly group of islands as part of its patrolling over the territorial waters belonging to thePhilippines Exclusive Economic Zone. China on its part had also sent one of it’s biggest civilian ships on the disputed areas in the South China Sea.
A vintage destroyer escort, BRP Rajah Humabon will patrol the Philippinesterritorial waters around Scarborough Shoals. The destroyer was the largest battleship of the Philippine Navy. It served numerous combat engagements during World War II in the Pacific and in the South China Sea.
Chinese Armed forces had been in constant development for the past few years, they have been developing their first ever made in China aircraft carrier and it’s first-ever stealth bomber.
The Philippines on the other hand was considered as one of the weakest armed forces in Asia. Most of the ships and even the air forces of the Philippines were vintages. They were second-hand and most of them had served during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
n terms of experienced, thePhilippines had the most number of wartime encounters not only in Asia but in the world as well. ThePhilippine Army logged even more encounters compared to the war zone countries in the world.
Philippine Navy’s modernization program was way behind the achievement compared to the modernization program of the Chinese government. The 20,000 strong Philippine Navy comprises 54 operational vessels, five aircraft, and 53 armored fighting vehicles, mostly refurbished.
Although Philippines can boasts off as one of the producers of combat warships in the world through the production amphibious tanks which was made in Cebu by FB Marine Aboitiz. It was under contract with the world’s largest defense contractor and supplier, Lockheed Martin.
Comments and Reaction:
I believe that its only natural that countries are after Spratly Islands. As I recall that Economics is all about managing Scarce Resources and its inevitable that Resources are limited. Given for a fact that Spratly Islands is rich in natural gasses, oils and aquatic life many countries seems to want a piece of the pie.
Spratly is for sure a vital component in making once economy stable, base on the findings Spratly islands geological reserves and resources they are on paramount. By securing Spratly we could catapult our economy to its finest state in our history. Philippines as a first world country? why not? We have a lot of natural resource and our population is 12th in the world. It's clear that Philippines has a lot of potential in making its economy stable.
The next question is how. By securing what is ours and practice equality and efficiency with our resources. So with that in mind I really got encouraged on what the Philippines would be like in the future. Through economics I really got to see the whole picture and it gives me the sense of responsibility in helping our economy in the near future.
