Well, if that makes China feel better, then it's free to criticize as much as possible.
Philippine isn't comparable to China in terms of military power, but that reason won't stop Philippine from protecting its interests and people. Due to that, Philippine should keep working alongside with its allies and participate in joint military exercises to increase its experience and also to achieve power balance with China.
Philippines will never achieve military balance with China by itself.
The flagship of Philippines' navy is a retired US coastguard ship armed with a few artillery and machine guns. Yep, no missile whatsoever modern weapons.
The truth is that a single Chinese 052D destroyer with 64 VLS can wipe out the entire Philippines' navy and the air force plus punching a few holes in their major military bases with their cruise missiles. Actually it is overkill, a single 052C or even 052B can do the same just fine. China has six 052C and three 052D in service, and will have total twelve 052D by 2018. Their next new ship is the 055 cruiser with (rumor says) 128 VLS and over 11,000 tons full loaded.
The only navy in the region can threat China is Japan which has over 40 very advanced destroyers and frigates. Although China will exceed Japan eventually in the number of destroyers with their current ship building pace. There were photos showing three 052D destroyers side by side in different building stage in a shipyard, with one 054 frigate beside them also building in progress. Japan is only planning to build 2 more Aegis capable destroyers to make it total 8.
Of course, once you put the US navy into the equation, China is totally the underdog here. Which is why they strongly get the feeling that the US is trying to contain them by using the little guys in the neighborhood.
