As Marcos Jr. smiles for the cameras beside his ASEAN counterparts, the region’s leaders once again mistake ceremony for strategy. ASEAN preserved peace by staying silent, but silence is no longer diplomacy, it is surrender. A Table of Smiles As Ferdinand Marcos Jr. meets with his fellow ASEAN leaders for yet another summit filled with handshakes, choreographed smiles, and carefully
Tag: foreign policy
The Philippines once guarded someone else’s peace. Now it guards its own. The Center That Never Wanted to Be One The Philippines never asked to be at the center of the Indo-Pacific. Geography made that choice for us. We sit in the path of ambition, where trade routes meet, where power projects, and where history keeps repeating itself. In the