What is unfolding in the Senate is no longer prudence but political positioning disguised as restraint. As a group of lawmakers quietly recalibrate their loyalty away from national interest and toward future power, they align themselves with a Beijing-friendly orbit associated with Vice President Sara Duterte, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. struggles to hold a coherent foreign-policy line.

By questioning international law, softening their stance on maritime intimidation, and echoing China’s talking points, these politicians are not practicing diplomacy — they are marketing themselves to a prospective patron, trading principle for proximity, and sovereignty for relevance. It is a politics of convenience in which national territory becomes collateral, legal victories become inconveniences, and intimidation is reframed as “engagement,” leaving voters and investors to absorb the long-term costs of leaders who would rather hedge their careers than defend their country’s sovereignty. 

There is a moment in every nation’s political life when pragmatism slips into accommodation, and accommodation quietly becomes complicity. 

The Philippines is approaching that moment. In recent months, Senate debates and public hearings on China and the West Philippine Sea have revealed a troubling pattern: a growing tendency among some lawmakers to question our own legal position, soften their language toward Beijing, and recast resistance as recklessness. This is often disguised as realism. But in practice, it looks increasingly like political positioning.

\The formal policy of the administration of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. remains anchored on international law and the 2016 arbitral ruling. On paper, the Philippines stands firm. In politics, however, paper is only as strong as the people defending it. Inside the august chamber of our legislature, a faction has emerged that treats legal victories as inconveniences and sovereignty as a negotiable variable. Their speeches sound cautious, but the implications are costly.

What makes this moment especially dangerous is its political timing. As President Marcos navigates domestic pressures and uneven public sentiment, Vice President Sara Duterte — widely regarded as more accommodating toward Beijing — retains substantial political capital as the 2028 presidential election approaches. 

This shifting balance has created powerful incentives within parts of the political establishment to recalibrate foreign policy — not around long-term national interest, but around short-term electoral survival. For senators aligned with the Duterte political bloc, softening rhetoric toward China and questioning our country’s own legal standing has increasingly resembled a form of signaling: a way of remaining relevant within a future power structure perceived as more receptive to Beijing.

Foreign policy, in other words, is being quietly folded into domestic ambition.

This alignment matters because China’s behavior leaves little room for interpretive generosity. From Tibet to Xinjiang, from Hong Kong to Taiwan, Beijing has built a record defined by repression, coercion, and unilateralism. In Hong Kong, journalists such as Jimmy Lai remain imprisoned for dissent. In Xinjiang, Uyghur communities face mass surveillance and forced assimilation. Taiwan lives under constant military pressure. These are not anomalies, but are components of a governing philosophy that equates control with stability and obedience with order.

The same philosophy governs China’s approach to Southeast Asia. State-backed fishing fleets and maritime militias operate under paramilitary protection. Civilian fishers are harassed. Exclusive economic zones are ignored. International rulings are dismissed. In the Mekong basin, upstream dams are managed without transparency, harming downstream communities while turning water into leverage. Criminal syndicates linked to Chinese networks flourish in weak jurisdictions. None of this reflects partnership; it reflects hierarchy.

Instead of confronting this reality with institutional clarity, however, some Philippine lawmakers blur it. They downplay intimidation. They scold critics for “provoking” Beijing. They equate compliance as maturity and resistance as recklessness. In doing so, they quietly normalize pressure.

This political repositioning has coincided with a sharper diplomatic posture from Beijing. The arrival of Ambassador Huang Xilian has marked a shift away from traditional restraint toward open public confrontation. Embassy statements and social media posts have become vehicles for warnings and ridicule. Members of the armed forces have been lectured. Coast Guard spokesperson Jay Tarriela has been publicly scolded. Senators Risa Hontiveros and Erwin Tulfo have been mocked. These are not exchanges among equals. They are exercises in intimidation.

What makes them effective is not their tone, but their timing. They operate in an environment where domestic actors are already fragmenting the national position. When senators themselves question legal clarity, external pressure becomes cheaper. When lawmakers dilute their own negotiating leverage, coercion becomes more efficient.

This is where electoral ambition turns into sovereign risk.

Investors understand this instinctively. Legal ambiguity raises premiums. Policy incoherence widens spreads. Political factionalism weakens institutional credibility. When foreign policy becomes an extension of campaign strategy, capital puts a price on instability. Sovereignty is not just a matter of maps. It is a component of creditworthiness.

History offers few examples of countries that benefited from accommodating expansionist powers. Silence is a position and can never be neutral. And in this case, silence — or strategic softness — is being adopted not for peace, but for positioning.

True engagement with China does not require submission. It requires clarity. It requires defending religious freedom in Tibet, civil liberties in Hong Kong, human rights in Xinjiang, and peaceful self-determination in Taiwan. It requires abandoning the nine-dash line and respecting the 2016 ruling of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It requires ending militarization, intimidation, and ecological destruction. These are not ideological demands. They are legal and institutional ones.

Peace and cooperation cannot be built on fear. Stability cannot rest on denial. Diplomacy cannot function when one side treats pressure as policy and the other treats accommodation as strategy.

The Philippines does not need legislators who hedge their convictions according to electoral winds. It needs stewards who understand that territory is an asset, law is protection, and credibility is capital. Aligning with power may look expedient in the short term. In the long term, it erodes both sovereignty and value.

In geopolitics, as in finance, assets that are quietly marked down rarely recover easily. The question now is whether the country’s political class will continue to treat sovereignty as a campaign variable, or finally defend it as the foundation of national and economic security. – Rappler.com

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