LAST week, what sounded like a potential scandal erupted following a statement from the US Embassy expressing 'concern' over the large-scale reclamation projects being constructed in Manila Bay. The contractor doing most of the work to create the artificial islands in the bay has been blacklisted by the US government for its substantial role in building China's illegal artificial islands in the South China Sea. The implication of the statement, of course, was that the Philippines should not be allowing the same firm to do exactly the same kind of work that, in a sense, epitomizes the long-simmering maritime dispute between the Philippines and China right on the capital's doorstep.