The Sierra Madre PN Ship is not an active ship base on maritime laws. The US will not be drag to war with china if the shooting war will start in the disputed territories and they are not in the MDT. Only if the mainland Philippines will be attacked and the MDT will trigger the US respond but on our Disputed Territories they won’t come to help us.
I disagree with the premise that US will not come to our aid cause some of the island in contention are within the 200 mile boundary that nations had signed in agreement..Some countries have a long stretches of small islands, then with your view they do not owned them.Since China in early days of its empire did not proclaim its ownership of contested area unlike our claim to Sarah which is documented and verified by historians.Still we should not rely solely with notion that the US will come to our aid.That is why Japan is beefing up its armed forces by buying sophisticated weapons just in case.A wise man once said, a wise leader must avoid war but must ready for it!!