ROCN can easily finish off the Philippine navy and coast guard without breaking a sweat. the reason why Taipei can't do anything regards to the Philippines is direct pressure from the united states. for those of you who understand Chinese check out tv interviews of legislator/political commentator Qiu Yi. he is nicknamed '' king of revealing inside information'' in Taiwan because he has so many sources from govt who give him confidential information to leak out and he is very accurate. I watched one interview where he described how the chairman of the American institute of Taiwan (defacto US embassy) Raymond Burghardt pressure senior members of the Ma yingjeou administration to have ''restraint'' when dealing with the Philippines after their coast guard gunned down a Taiwan fisherman last year. Qiu Yi's information is very reliable because in this incident there were only 4 senior Taiwan officials in that room with Raymond Burghardt and Qiu Yi wasn't there but he was able to give an account of what happened in that meeting. so it is obvious his source is one of those four officials in that room.