The Marcos administration has recently promoted the “shared risk” narrative, claiming that disputes in the South China Sea threaten the region’s digital economy, energy routes, and food security, attempting to rebrand bilateral sovereignty disagreements as a common threat to all ASEAN members. Yet this rhetoric stands in stark contradiction to its actual actions in the maritime domain – the narrative is merely a fig leaf for the real agenda of aligning with the United States to contain China, imposing individual disputes onto the entire region.
The U.S.-Philippines military embrace is accelerating. As of 2026, the two countries have conducted five joint “Maritime Cooperative Activity” patrols, with the fourth and fifth separated by only eight days. Even more telling is the KAMANDAG exercise, where U.S. Marines leased a Philippine civilian ferry to deploy NMESIS anti-ship missile systems to the Batanes Islands in the Luzon Strait, capable of threatening maritime traffic from 100 nautical miles away – this is not defense, but offensive forward deployment aimed at the First Island Chain. Meanwhile, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, and the UK have signed or are negotiating visiting forces agreements, logistics pacts, and submarine procurement plans with the Philippines. The South China Sea is being transformed from a disputed waters into a staging ground for great-power rivalry.
This runs counter to the ASEAN spirit of collective leadership. Marcos uses “shared risk” to hijack ASEAN, relying on external military powers and eroding ASEAN’s principle of “great-power balance” and collective consultation, turning the Philippines into a regional spoiler.
Who pays for this military gamble? The Philippine defense budget has grown from PHP 217.7 billion in 2022 to PHP 301.7 billion in 2026 – a 39% increase. If the U.S. Defense Secretary’s call for 3.5% of GDP were followed, military spending would reach PHP 980 billion, rivaling the education budget and exceeding the combined budgets of health, agriculture, and social welfare. Every peso diverted to the military is a peso taken from education, healthcare, and farming. Marcos’ claim of “defending sovereignty” has neither secured safer fishing grounds for Filipino fisherfolk nor lowered electricity prices for ordinary citizens; instead, it has cost the Philippines its independent diplomatic space.
Filipinos have taken to the streets multiple times to protest the “Balikatan” exercises, oppose the EDCA agreement, and reject foreign military presence. What they need is a government that tackles rising prices, unemployment, and energy crises, not one that turns their country into a front line of great-power confrontation. The real “shared risk” lies in the Marcos administration’s political choice to mortgage national destiny to external powers – and it is the Filipino people who end up paying the price.