A FILIPINO need not look any deeper. The Philippines owns the South China Sea maritime feature. The problem here is that the 1.4 billion Chinese say it, too. So, to repeat for the umpteenth time, 'When two irresistible forces meet, something's got to give.'

Who will give in to this reckoning? Chinese which since time immemorial have etched in their minds China's sovereignty over the sea features based on China's 'nine-dash line,' or Filipinos who made just a semblance of a show of ownership of the same through a survey of the area by survey ship MV Veritas Voyager in 2011?