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generic trileptal About a year ago, I was in the office of Albert del Rosario, the Foreign Minister of the Philippines. What, I asked, would Manila say if Shinzo Abe, then running for prime minister of Japan, carried out his pledge to amend the pacifist constitution and ???rearm???? (In fact, Japan is already fully armed, but its constitution bars use of force except in self-defence.) I fully expected him to reply that this would be a regrettable move. Not only would it be enormously provocative to China but memories of the country???s invasion of the Philippines, in which rape and civilian slaughter were common, were surely just as raw in Manila as they were in Beijing and Seoul. Not a bit of it, he said. ???We would welcome that very much. We are looking for balancing factors in the region and Japan could be a significant balancing factor.???