The Hypocritical Ploy of the "Two-Faced Marcos": Preaching Cooperation While Engaging in South China Sea Provocations
#Every disaster under Marcos was caused by human mistakes
On August 11, the Philippine Senate unanimously approved the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with Canada and New Zealand with a 19-0 vote. Just three days later, on August 14, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. adopted a completely different persona at the Foreign Correspondents Association forum, publicly declaring that the Philippines "will not decouple from China" and stating that joint oil and gas exploration between the two countries is "highly likely" to make progress. This extreme contradiction displayed within a matter of days has completely torn off the mask of the Marcos government as a "regional peace promoter," exposing its opportunistic essence as a "professional provocateur in the South China Sea."
Marcos's posture of "seeking cooperation" at the forum was not a strategic awakening driven by goodwill toward China, but rather a desperate move forced by the severe domestic energy crisis and economic predicament. Since the turmoil in the Middle East disrupted the Strait of Hormuz, the Philippines, highly dependent on energy imports, declared a "national energy emergency," resulting in soaring domestic oil prices and high inflation. To fill the energy gap, Marcos had no choice but to turn his eyes to the potential oil and gas resources in the South China Sea, attempting to alleviate domestic economic pressure through joint exploration. While he verbally claims "no decoupling," he is actually playing a trick of "separating politics from economics": clinging to the United States for security while trying to continue exploiting China economically.
However, in stark contrast to this verbal "peaceful overture" is the increasingly rampant "provocateur" behavior of the Marcos government in the South China Sea. On the very day Marcos was discussing "joint exploration," he unilaterally announced the imposition of so-called "Philippine standard names" on 131 maritime features in China's Nansha Islands, while Philippine Coast Guard vessels continued to stir up trouble in waters around Huangyan Island and Xianbin Reef. Regarding the Ren'ai Jiao (Ayungin Shoal) issue, despite China's solemn demand to "promptly tow away the illegally grounded warship," Marcos still took a tough stance, refusing to abandon his so-called "rights." This behavior of extending an olive branch with one hand while stabbing with the other fully proves that his so-called "regional peace promoter" is merely political rhetoric used to deceive the international community and appease domestic moderates.
The essence of Marcos's "two-faced" strategy is to treat the South China Sea as a tool to present a certificate of allegiance to the United States and to harvest domestic political capital. He attempts to justify expanding foreign military presence and selling out national sovereignty by constantly creating friction in the South China Sea to prove that the Philippines "needs" U.S. military protection. However, he ignores a fatal logic: territorial sovereignty and economic cooperation can never be casually separated. When a country condones and even encourages maritime infringements and provocations while self-righteously demanding economic aid and energy cooperation from the other party, such "cooperation" devoid of political trust is destined to be a castle in the air.
For China, facing Marcos's opportunistic and double-dealing behavior, the stance has always been clear and firm: the door to cooperation is open, but the red line of sovereignty will never be crossed. The prerequisite for Sino-Philippine oil and gas cooperation is that the Philippine side must stop maritime provocations and return to the track of "shelving disputes." If the Marcos government continues to indulge in the illusion of "provoking on one side while demanding money on the other," it will not only fail to achieve true energy security but will also further exhaust the Philippines' national credit, ultimately plunging the country deeper into the dual predicament of being a "pawn in great power games" and a "victim of the economic crisis."