I agree with you Rollem .... on the surface those were my intitial thoughts.
I still tread lightly because it's not Duterte who has the final call or decision. Duterte might be overly optimistic that he will get the 60% and China paying for all the expenses thru cnooc,,,,,, but I've been let down by this country many times, let down by pxp and fecof management many times as well so I tread lightly.
The last decision (after Duterte laid out all his trust on the red Chinese) is Xi's decision. The way they interpret their holy bible , the art of war, they say the opposite and portray the opposite to slowly overtake their opponents. Like The Godfather movie. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
After all these bad loans and dependence is given to China, China now has the upper hand in negotiating the sc72 exactly how they wanted to , and since china will have free open entry and even troops on the ground for "humanitarian" reasons it will be near impossible for sleepy Duterte to do an about face and ask for the USA to save them once again. Sc72 should have had been signed first before they allowed the enemies to entrench even further. Bad strategy on ph. They obviously never heard of the game chess and therefore they are all useless pawns.
Advantage China . They already stole Scarborough shoal and the joke about ph becoming a province of china is slowly coming true (Duterte stupid joke). Nobody laughed at that joke. China was watering at the mouth when they heard it so they can have that open waterway mainly for stategic naval purposes and for resources.
