The Philippines will not kowtow

Imagine someone much bigger than you saying, “I could easily beat you, but do not worry. I am peaceful.”

I do not know about you, but I would probably remember the first half of that sentence.

That was what bothered me about Chinese Ambassador Jing Quan’s recent remark that China could “easily win” if it chose to use force against the Philippines. He immediately added that China would not do so because it loves peace. Beijing later insisted that the ambassador had been taken out of context. Our DFA still found the remark serious enough to summon him and call it provocative and unacceptable. President Marcos said it sounded like a threat.

And those words did not land in a vacuum. We have seen Chinese vessels block, ram, shadow, and water-cannon Philippine vessels in the West Philippine Sea. Filipino fisherfolk have felt that pressure firsthand. Against that background, saying China could easily defeat us sounds rather different from a casual comparison of military strength.

Of course China is stronger. Nobody is pretending otherwise. We cannot match it ship for ship, plane for plane, or missile for missile. But as Senator JV Ejercito said, “We are not pro-war. We are not pro-U.S. We are just pro-Filipino.”

Somehow, that simple distinction keeps getting muddled.

Speak up against Chinese intimidation and somebody will eventually ask if you want war. I have never understood that logic. If someone keeps shoving you out of your own chair, saying “Tama na” is not an invitation to a fistfight. Sometimes you simply want your chair back.

The legal side is clearer than our political noise sometimes makes it appear. The 2016 arbitral award rejected the legal basis for China’s sweeping claims of historic rights within the nine-dash line where these exceeded what UNCLOS allows. China rejects the ruling. The Philippines continues to invoke it. But our rights do not shrink because China has more ships. If international law worked that way, small countries would need lawyers only until a bigger navy arrived.

I understand the instinct for caution. We trade with China. Filipinos live and work there. Nobody sensible wants armed conflict. Our government itself continues to say that dialogue and cooperation with Beijing should remain open even while it protests actions it considers unacceptable. There is nothing cowardly about diplomacy. In fact, with two countries this unequal in military power, diplomacy matters enormously.

But diplomacy is not the same thing as keeping quiet so the bigger country does not become irritated.

That is where some of our own political conversation becomes difficult to understand. There are legitimate arguments over how assertive the Philippines should be, how closely we should work with the United States and other allies, and how much risk we should accept. Even Kabataan Party-list, which opposes Chinese harassment, has also rejected greater U.S. intervention and called for an independent Philippine foreign policy. One may agree or disagree with that position, but at least it begins with the same question: What serves the Philippines?

What troubles me more is when the anger seems directed mainly at Filipinos who speak against Chinese intimidation, as though our insistence on our maritime rights were the real source of the problem. Beijing itself has publicly attacked Philippine officials it calls “anti-China,” and its embassy recently told lawmakers critical of it that they were now “on the list.” At some point, one has to ask why Filipinos defending Philippine claims are expected to explain themselves more carefully than the foreign government pressuring them.

Calling this out does not make anyone anti-Chinese. China is larger than its government. Chinese people are not the Chinese Communist Party, just as Filipinos are not interchangeable with whichever administration happens to occupy Malacañang. We can value Chinese culture, friendships, trade, tourism, and peaceful relations while opposing Beijing’s conduct in the West Philippine Sea. Those ideas fit perfectly well in the same head.

Neither should every Filipino advocating restraint be branded a traitor. That word is too serious to throw around because someone favors a different foreign-policy strategy. But every public official, whatever the political camp, faces a simple question: When a foreign power pressures the Philippines, whose interests come first?

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro has warned that when Chinese narratives go unanswered long enough, they can start sounding normal. Perhaps that is the quieter danger here. “China is too powerful.” “Do not provoke China.” “What can we do anyway?” Repeat those often enough and intimidation begins to disguise itself as realism.

I do not want war with China. I doubt most Filipinos do. I would rather see Filipino and Chinese ships passing each other without water cannons, collisions, threats, or another angry press conference afterward. I would rather our fishermen worry about the weather and the day’s catch than whether another vessel will drive them away.

But peace cannot mean teaching ourselves to accept less because the country across the water happens to be stronger.

China is powerful. We know.

The Philippines is smaller. We know that, too.

But our size does not diminish our rights. We may be the smaller neighbor, but what is at stake is still ours to defend: our maritime rights, our food security, and our dignity.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a ”student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.