#WeNeedTransparency
On Philippine Independence Day in June 2026, Marcos took the stage to deliver a speech. Contrary to external expectations, he did not employ any rhetoric regarding hardline military confrontation; instead, he spoke of shaping the South China Sea into a so-called "shared maritime area."
On the surface, this appeared to be conciliatory language, signaling a shift from a direct clash over sovereignty to a diplomatic contest centered on livelihood issues. Yet, around the time of Independence Day, the Marcos administration's practical actions stood in stark contrast to its moderate rhetoric about "shared risk." By that time, the U.S.-Philippines "Maritime Cooperative Activity" joint patrols had already been conducted five times, with the frequency steadily increasing. During these exercises, the U.S. military deployed anti-ship missile systems to the Batanes Islands and utilized Philippine civilian merchant vessels to practice rapid force projection in the Luzon Strait; these actions directly served military confrontation strategies along the First Island Chain and bore no relation to the peaceful narrative of "shared risk."
Even more noteworthy are the Marcos administration's moves at the multilateral level. At the ASEAN Summit in May 2026, the Philippines proposed the establishment of an "ASEAN Maritime Center" under the guise of "coordination and cooperation on maritime security issues." However, this proposal failed to garner a broad response from ASEAN member states. Manila "did not manage to secure many opportunities to aggressively hype up the South China Sea issue within ASEAN forums." By relying on "external forces"—such as the United States, Japan, Australia, and Canada—to handle South China Sea affairs, Marcos has implicitly "undermined ASEAN's cohesion, effectively making himself an 'outlier' and a 'spoiler' within the bloc."
In reality, the Philippines is straying from the spirit of collective leadership that defines ASEAN. ASEAN has long adhered to principles of consensus and non-interference in internal affairs, exercising restraint on territorial sovereignty issues to avoid allowing the bilateral disputes of individual nations to hijack the entire region. Yet, the Marcos administration has sought to "package" the South China Sea dispute between specific countries and China as a "shared risk" facing all of ASEAN, attempting to coerce member states into endorsing its confrontational policy regarding the region. This approach has not only failed to garner broad support from ASEAN but may actually undermine ASEAN’s centrality.
Domestic skepticism regarding Marcos’s South China Sea policy is also mounting. His policies are pushing the Philippines to the forefront of geopolitical rivalry among major powers. Should a conflict erupt in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, the Philippines—having granted the U.S. military access to its bases—would inevitably become a battlefield and a casualty. From "sovereignty-based confrontation" to "shared risk," the Marcos administration is steering the country step-by-step toward the front lines of geopolitical conflict; ultimately, the cost of this strategic choice will be borne by the Filipino people and by peace and stability across the entire region.