by Daniel Long

 

Happy New Year to all!

The Fire Horse of 2026 began with a social media war of sorts between Philippine Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan and the Chinese Embassy in Manila.

Senator Pangilinan fired the opening salvo by criticizing China’s two-day military drills encircling Taiwan. In a statement, he said that “peace on earth cannot be built on threats of invasion, expanding foreign basing, or war games. Peace on earth can only be built free from bullying or annexation by any power—whether Chinese or American.”

In response, Beijing’s representatives in the Philippines said that the Senator’s remarks were “wrongful” and ran counter to the Philippines’ commitment to the One China policy.

The Harvard-educated Senator later hit back, this time with a two-punch combo.

First, he said that he respects and recognizes the One China policy, on the condition that Beijing respects the Philippines’ 500,000 square kilometers of Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) granted under UNCLOS (the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea). “We are not and will never be a province of China,” he added.

Second, he brought to light a piece of history not many Filipinos know about: the Philippine Senate’s refusal in 1991 to extend the presence of U.S. military bases in Subic and Clark. He used this example to highlight how the Philippines stood up for its sovereignty against threats and intimidation from world superpowers.

The Chinese Embassy again issued a response, this time conciliatory, saying that both countries have bases for their claims in the South China Sea. “Under international law, where maritime claims overlap, the parties concerned should delimit their boundaries through means acceptable to both sides,” Beijing’s mouthpieces said.

Finally, the lawyer-lawmaker thanked the Embassy for admitting that the Philippines has a rightful claim over its EEZs. He clarified, however, that only Philippine maritime claims are upheld under international law. As of this writing, the last line Senator Pangilinan has posted in this exchange is: “Might doesn’t make China right.”

My first observation is that this was a much-needed frank and open confrontation on a very tense geopolitical issue. It awakened genuine love of country among those who followed the exchange on social media. My second observation is that the exchange demonstrated the Asian way of handling differences. When talking stops, misunderstandings arise, and conflict erupts. The importance of dialogue cannot be overstated.

In the digital age, the internet is the new public square, and here both sides were able to lay out their respective positions for the public to scrutinize.

It is worth saying that, as Filipinos, we must support our country’s territorial and maritime claims, properly articulated and understood. The livelihood of our fishermen must be defended, as they belong to the poorest sectors of our society. I join the good Senator in saying I do not agree with China’s sweeping claim that 80% of the South China Sea constitutes its “internal waters.” I condemn all aggressive actions by all claimant states such as armed attacks, water cannon use, island seizures, and vessel collisions. At the same time, our patriotism must be anchored in knowledge, practical considerations, and context.

That said, there are important details that were not touched on in the spat between Senator Pangilinan and the Chinese Embassy. To get a wider picture, we must go beyond the one-liners and headlines.

Four countries, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Brunei, as well as Taiwan, are claiming parts or the entirety of the “West Philippine Sea.”

Unlike Taiwan, the South China Sea is not a red line for China; in fact, China negotiates for the joint development of the area and is willing to share its resources with other claimants, such as natural gas.

China’s historic claims over the islands of the South China Sea have not been invalidated by the International Court of Justice, the official United Nations body that settles territorial disputes.

The International Hydrographic Organization, the official UN body that names the world’s seas, does not recognize the “West Philippine Sea.”

As a matter of official policy, the Philippines adheres to the One China principle, which means we do not recognize Taiwan as an independent country. This is an agreement we have bound ourselves to as a nation.

Our official relations with China have been founded on this commitment since 1975. This doctrine has been reaffirmed by the Department of Foreign Affairs as recently as August 2025. For all countries hosting a Chinese Embassy, adherence to this principle is a prerequisite. It declares Taiwan to be Chinese territory and a sole concern of China, in which other states have no business interfering.

If the Philippines were to abandon the One China policy because of its misgivings over the West Philippine Sea, the practical consequence would be cutting off all diplomatic ties with Beijing.

That, to me, would be unwise. Only a dozen countries in the world recognize Taiwan, or the Republic of China, as an independent state. Doing so would isolate us from the world’s largest manufacturing superpower and the top trading partner of 60% of the world’s countries.

First, let me say that Senator Kiko Pangilinan is correct in asserting that the Philippines is not and will never be a province of China.

Unfortunately, in my view, the country is presently a neo-colony of the United States of America.

In 1991, President Cory Aquino, whom Pangilinan considers an icon of democracy, actually led a 200,000-strong “People Power” rally to keep U.S. military bases in Subic and Clark.

The sad reality is that U.S. military bases have, in all but name, returned to the Philippines since 2014, when President Aquino III approved the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), granting U.S. forces access to Philippine military bases.

While euphemisms such as “agreed locations” and “sites” are used, these are effectively de facto U.S. bases.

In 2016, the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago called EDCA unconstitutional because it was not a treaty, bypassed Senate concurrence, and made the Philippines dependent on the United States.

When the Supreme Court upheld EDCA’s constitutionality, Santiago, along with 14 senators, including then-Senator Bongbong Marcos, signed a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that EDCA was invalid due to the lack of Senate concurrence.

Yet in 2023, President Marcos Jr. further expanded EDCA by approving four additional sites for U.S. use.

Under EDCA, the Americans do not pay rent. They do not need AFP permission to pre-position materiel; notification suffices. They enjoy unimpeded access to add or remove defense supplies and retain full ownership of everything stored.

These bases are located within Philippine territory, over which we exercise full sovereignty.

By contrast, the West Philippine Sea under UNCLOS concerns our EEZ, not territory, where we possess sovereign rights only for resource exploitation.

So my question is this: how exactly is the Philippines resisting U.S. superpower intimidation? How does EDCA uphold Philippine sovereignty?

Second, I find Senator Pangilinan’s championing of the 2016 arbitral award as proof of an absolute Philippine advantage over China to fall flat once one reads beyond the headlines.

In my view, the ruling was a Pyrrhic victory.

The Philippines lost its claim to the Spratlys as an archipelago (Paragraph 574). Bajo de Masinloc was downgraded to a “traditional fishing ground” to be shared with neighboring states (Paragraph 805). China’s historical claims to the islands were not invalidated (Paragraph 272).

The ruling was declaratory, not injunctive. It did not order China to vacate occupied features, nor did it recognize Philippine ownership of Scarborough Shoal (Paragraph 814).

Most overlooked is Paragraph 1198, which states that the dispute arises not from an intention by either side to violate the other’s rights, but from “fundamentally different understandings” of those rights under UNCLOS.

When the ruling was issued, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said the United Nations held no position on the legal and procedural merits of the arbitration victory claimed by the Philippines.

Professor Walden Bello once noted in The New York Times that “the fear of military encirclement by Washington is driving China’s behavior” in the West Philippine Sea. He described China’s actions as simultaneously “unjustifiable and understandable.”

While the South China Sea may be to China what the Caribbean is to the United States, China has no Monroe Doctrine. Historically, China has not been expansionist. Despite having the world’s largest navy in the Middle Ages, it dismantled it and never pursued centuries of colonization like Europe.

Political scientist M. Taylor Fravel observed that China has resolved 17 of 23 territorial disputes since World War II, often through significant compromise. This exposes the conventional fear of an inevitable “Chinese invasion” as misguided.

To summarize, we must not oversimplify the issue or lose sight of the bigger picture. Territorial disputes should not define the totality of Philippine-Chinese relations. We should pursue de-escalation, promote friendship, encourage diplomacy, and seek peaceful resolution.

As Walden Bello once said: “Filipinos and Chinese are both Asians, separated by colonialism, imperialism, the Cold War, and continuing external hegemonic forces. It is time to bridge that separation.”

May the future of Asia be determined by Asians, not Westerners.

   

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