The U.S. should negotiate a commercial agreement for access to logistic support facilities in Subic Bay.
Before Tsang's announcement last week, Subic Bay in the Philippines said it still believed it was in the running.
Had American warships still been berthed at Subic Bay, China would not have dared to press its territorial claims so close to the Philippines' shores.
Twelve months ago, leaders from the 18 nations that comprise the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum gathered in the Philippines' sunny Subic Bay for their annual meeting.
Their enmity dates back to 1991, when Mr Gordon refused to let Mr Estrada into Subic Bay to film a movie critical of American bases in the Philippines.
Sporting an Elvis haircut and casually dressed in a black polo shirt, white jacket, pants and shoes, the Philippine President chatted with FORBES GLOBAL recently at a Subic Bay yacht club.
Another problem for Mr Estrada is Subic Bay, a former United States naval base that has been transformed, since the Americans left it in 1992, into the country's flagship export-processing zone.
"Some investors are coming here, instead of to Malaysia or Indonesia, because this is the only country whose change in political leadership is predictable, " argues Felicito Payumo, chairman of the Philippines' Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.
None of this, of course, has impressed firms such as America's Federal Express or Acer, Taiwan's biggest computer maker, who are among the multinationals that have invested heavily in Subic Bay and now face disruption from the dispute.
An investor in the Subic Bay economic zone, a converted former American naval base, reckons that although 80% of the transport and telecoms links to the area are finished, that is enough to attract only 10-20% of potential investors.
After the Soviets drew down their forces at Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay naval base in 1984 and the U.S. left the Clark and Subic Bay bases in the Philippines in 1991, the PLA occupied nearby islands in the South China Sea.
However, on May 20th, Admiral Joseph Prueher, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, said that America was considering once again increasing its use of the naval facilities in Subic Bay not as a base, you understand, just as a frequent port of call.
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