What’s the quid pro quo for EDCA?
I FOUND the following May 8 piece posted at the online publication Asia Times insightful and balanced, unlike pieces by many commentators uncritically echoing US propaganda. Several of its assertions, albeit unexplained, are intriguing.
The online magazine describes the article’s author Lucio Blanco Pitlo 3rd as a visiting scholar at the Department of Diplomacy and Center for Foreign Policy Studies of the National Chengchi University in Taipei.

His Facebook profile indicates that he has been studying the South China Sea disputes for quite some time now in Philippine institutions’ research projects.
Asia Times is based in Hong Kong and owned by a Thai publisher and purportedly aims to provide its readers with an in-depth “Asian view.” A New York Times article described it as “one of the most prominent of the regional publications.” A few of its editors were from the Far Eastern Economic Review, where I worked as a bureau chief from 1989 to 2000. I was invited to write articles for it years ago.
Pitlo’s article is titled “As US-China rivalry boils, Manila should play its cards well.”