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The Asian championship starts today in India. Australia, China and Japan stand out in quality in Division A. Japan started preparation for this tournament 2 months ago, at the USA and Europe tour, lost to strong European teams (Serbia, Spain), easily handled weak teams like Bulgaria and Macedonia. At the end of the preparation period, they faced Netherlands at home, and first won 72-45 and then 91-42 (Netherlands were not with their best team, but most of their players were in the Eurobasket qualifications last year): Philippines were in Division B at the Asian Championship two years ago, they lost to Malaysia, defeated Kazakhstan in overtime, North Korea by 1, and with a win over India (82-76) entered the Division A.
It is hard to find any comparable Japan's games in the past years, but they also faced India at that Asian Championship and defeated them 131-31. Japan are with a weaker roster (WNBA player Tokashiki is out), but the Philippines are as good as they were before (even though they had plans, they do not have any Americans on the team), which is best seen from the fact that they faced Malaysia in preparation for this tournament and lost 53-64, and Malaysia lost to Japanese University team Tohoku 51-71 a few days after that. Malaysia are not at the Asian Championship this year.
All in all, regardless of the fact that Japan have a weaker roster than last year at the Olympics and at the last Asian Championship, because of their quality, mentality and Philippine's lack of quality, I expect them to win convincingly.