by Daniel Long

 

The final month of 2025 began with me receiving an invite for a courtesy call with former President and now Pampanga’s 2nd District Representative, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, at her home for an early Christmas get-together with a small group of her relatives, friends, and other young professionals. It was actually my first time meeting her in person.

It was such an honor and privilege for a young man like me to learn from her enlightening insights on Philippine politics and our diplomatic relations with China. All of this, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without the endorsement of our mutual friend, Michael Ong.

As one of the earliest among the small group to arrive, I received her gracious hospitality. To be honest, it was a little intimidating—naturally, she is a former head of state. This insecurity vanished as every conversation felt less like the professor she is delivering a lecture and more like a frank exchange between friends. She even made a short video message for me, offering kind words of encouragement for my budding career in journalism, which she described as a “noble profession.”

There were many meaningful and thought-provoking discussions on various subjects that the group had with her before, during, and after the dinner she had prepared for us. I observed that she is a good listener and made equal time for interacting with each and every one of us.

Before I departed, I thanked her for her time, for warmly accommodating our small group, and for her public service to the nation. I also made a promise to her that I would continue promoting stronger Filipino-Chinese friendship and people-to-people ties—of which she is a pioneer, as the Chairperson Emeritus of the Association for Philippines-China Understanding (APCU) NGO—in my capacity as a journalist, a Chinoy, and a member of Gen Z.

Many rightfully credit her academic expertise for steering our nation’s economy through the stormy waters of the global financial crisis in 2008, during which we survived a recession because of the policies she implemented, such as the VAT reform, the strengthening of the BPO sector and call centers, and holiday economics. These actually laid the foundation for stable domestic growth in the early 2010s.

However, there is one aspect of her legacy as President that is often overlooked: Her push for and enactment of an “independent foreign policy.” This is mandated in the 1987 Philippine Constitution under Article II, Section 7. In contemporary times, this was strongly pursued by nationalist Presidents Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., Joseph E. Estrada, herself, and Rodrigo R. Duterte.

Before former Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian concluded his diplomatic service in Manila, he paid a farewell visit to Vice President Sara Duterte. During the meeting, he expressed hope that bilateral relations between the Philippines and China would return to “a sound and healthy track.” To the geopolitically untrained reader, this would seem like a simple message of hope. But in China’s view, it implies that we are in a situation where diplomatic ties are unsound and unhealthy. For me, it is a correct diagnosis, but one where the cure is just in our midst.

Let us recall that for the first 36 months, the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. faced challenges in China’s aggressive assertion of its sovereignty claims in our maritime zones; pulled out of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects, which left funding for the railways in Mindanao and Bicol hanging in the balance; and saw a significant decline in tourism numbers from our superpower neighbor, among other issues.

It is important for us to revisit how FPGMA navigated our complex but longstanding relationship with China. After all, PBBM didn’t call her once his “secret weapon” for nothing. In our meeting, she told me that she first visited China in 1975, and then the following year again with her family. She said that she had accompanied Alejandro Roces, who had been the Secretary of Education during her father President Diosdado Macapagal’s administration, on a trip to China he organized.

She told our group that life was so much simpler in China when she visited in the early 1970s. I chuckled as she told us that the people, both men and women, were all wearing “Mao [Zedong] suits.” It is easy for us to take for granted that China now operates the world’s fastest high-speed trains, with the Shanghai Maglev reaching 460 kilometers per hour. But back then, everyone was just riding their bicycles to get around, she recalled.

On January 25, 2002, exactly seven months before I was born, she signed a proclamation as President declaring June 9 as Filipino-Chinese Friendship Day every year, strengthening people-to-people ties. For FPGMA, China is not a threat or an enemy but, in her words, “a market, a donor, and a collaborator.” In 2009, under her term, the Philippines and China signed the Joint Action Plan for Strategic Cooperation, a five-year agreement to increase cooperation in all areas.

I revealed to the former President that I am a friend of Adolfo Azcuna, whom she had appointed Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. He had joined the late President Cory Aquino’s state visit to China in 1988, where Chairman Deng Xiaoping introduced a new framework for managing maritime disputes – shelving the disputes for future generations to resolve and seeking joint development instead.

I told FPGMA that her JMSU (Joint Maritime Seismic Undertaking) was done in that spirit of regional cooperation and mutual development. JMSU was a 2005 tripartite agreement for oil exploration in the disputed South China Sea, in an area that covered 80% of our maritime zones, involving Philippine, Chinese, and Vietnamese oil and gas companies. She informed us that she modeled JMSU after the 1979 joint oil and gas exploitation deal between Malaysia and Thailand on the continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand.

It is my hope that the national government heeds this wisdom revived by Senator Robin Padilla, who is currently pushing for joint oil and gas exploration in the same maritime zones. Another retired Supreme Court Associate Justice, a China critic even, has written that the move would turn the area from a flashpoint into a “zone of peace.”

Fortunately, we are already seeing many course corrections in Philippines-China relations this year. For starters, there hasn’t been a single incident of water cannoning or harassment by China against Philippine resupply missions, at least at Ayungin Shoal. Recall that it was a hot flashpoint before the July 2024 9th Bilateral Consultative Mechanism. This means that diplomatic channels are working and must continue to be strengthened.

Second, the resumption of Philippine eVisa operations in China last month. Chinese nationals residing in mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong can now apply for Philippine eVisas valid for a single, non-extendable 14-day entry. According to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the initiative aims to enhance people-to-people exchanges and facilitate trade and tourism cooperation.

And finally, the opening of the Bucana Bridge to Davao City motorists in a few days. The project was pushed by then-Mayor Inday Sara Duterte, initiated under President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” program, funded through a P3.1-billion grant from the Chinese government, and constructed under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. PBBM acknowledged the efforts of the Chinese contractors during his inspection of the bridge earlier this month.

Last week, China finally sent Jing Quan, former Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America, to serve as its new Ambassador to the Philippines. Quan expressed that he wants to serve “as a bridge to ensure China–Philippines relations stabilize rather than deteriorate,” and that the two peoples may “draw closer instead of drifting apart.”

Yesterday, PBBM accepted his credentials in a ceremony held at Malacañang Palace. Marcos told Jing that he wished for a “stronger and deeper” relationship and “intensified” cooperation between Beijing and Manila. “Our differences should be the exception in our ties rather than the norm,” he added.

I will end with timeless and timely wisdom from former Chairman Mao Zedong: “You can change ideology and religion anytime, but you cannot change geography,” he once said to former First Lady Imelda Marcos during her first visit to China.

It is my hope that in the upcoming Lunar New Year 2026 (which many say “could bring chaos but also progress”), there will arise a consciousness among our people that our hopes and dreams for the development of our archipelago are anchored not on the temptation to grow in isolation but on the collective will to develop together as neighbours.

Wishing an early Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Daniel Long writes for various newspapers and journals on geopolitics, including the Asian Century Journal, and has represented the Philippines in multiple delegations to China. He was also a speechwriter for Sen. Imee Marcos.

   

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