Manila's antics just self-serving troublemaking

To confront Beijing over their South China Sea territorial dispute, Manila has resorted to many tricks in recent years. Its real intention is to lead others by the nose and cajole them into believing the story of its own making in which it portrays itself as a weak and small country trying to stand up to the bullying of a big neighbor.

The recent remarks from Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario are just one example of this.

At a recent meeting among top diplomats of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, del Rosario called for a "collective and unified" ASEAN stance on the South China Sea dispute, alleging that the bloc's "silence" and "inaction" on the issue would undermine its "principle of centrality".