So true about the brain drain. My wife's immediate family left Manila in the early eighties, and they're now working on convincing extended family to emigrate.
I do think it was a mistake to ask the US to pull out and close our bases back in the day. Doing so makes it easy for our scared politicians to procrastinate on dealing the messy China business. If our bases where still there and active, then this Spratley nonsense won't be happening. Hopefully future leaders from both countries will rethink that mistake.