President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said that the Philippines would continue to engage China on mutual interests but would “push back” if the country’s sovereignty over the West Philippine Sea would be “questioned or ignored.”
Speaking before Australian policy think tank Lowy Institute at the iconic State Library Victoria in Melbourne, Marcos Jr. rejected the notion that maritime disputes in the South China Sea are an extension of the contest between the United States and China.
Such a narrative “distracts us from calling out aggressive, unilateral, illegal, and unlawful actions” that violate international law and the charter of the United Nations, the President said.
He called the Philippines’ alliance with the United States “a pillar of regional stability for decades,” but also cited “centuries of friendship and kinship” between the Filipino and Chinese peoples.
“Our independent foreign policy compels us to cooperate with them (China) on matters where our interests align, to respectfully disagree on areas where our views differ, and to push back when our sworn principles, such as our sovereignty, sovereign rights, and our jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea are questioned or ignored,” Marcos Jr. said.
He added that defending the territory of the Republic was not a policy choice but his “primordial duty” as the country’s leader.
He reiterated the Philippines commitment to the peaceful settlement of disputes, but said: “We shall never surrender even a single square inch of our territory and our maritime jurisdiction. In this regard, we are upgrading the capabilities of our Coast Guard and pursuing the modernization of our Armed Forces.”
Pushing back against an aggressive and powerful neighbor like China is easier said than done, which could be the reason why the previous administration chose the path of least resistance instead, which, while easier, put the country in a disadvantageous position when it came to protecting its own territory and sovereignty.
Now that the current administration is more willing to push back, Filipinos can only hope they can back up the words with action and we can at the very least prevent our greedy neighbor from taking even more territory, or even better, take back what had been lost by the passiveness of the previous dispensation.*
