I thought Chinese was a mandatory language to be used to relate to the merchants in downtown Dumaguete or the Mall/ Bank owners of the Philippines.
Sounds like good political strategy to me. The US (an ally) has corporate and other reasons (like slowing/stopping China's expansion) so they will be sending their Navy anyway, extending a hand of friendship and accepting goodwill from China at the same time puts the PI in a neutral Switzerland-like position (wish both of you, my friends, would get along but we can't take sides. Meanwhile we, the PI, will be accepting goodwill from both of you).
Sounds like good strategy so long as there is never an armed conflict. In a fight, both parties will look upon Philippines as hostile.
One would hope, much like the big banks are "too big to fail", the US and China are "too big to fight" - in the final analysis, peace (another cold war maybe, some skirmishes, but not all out war) through mutually assured destruction.
