A few years back, I found myself in a small fishing village in Zambales, talking to a 67-year-old boatman named Mang Lito. He pointed to the horizon over the same waters his father had navigated, the same seas where he learned to read the waves before he learned to read letters.
“Wala kaming ibang hangad kapag nasa laot para mangisda, kundi makauwi sa aming pamilya” (We don’t ask for much when we’re out fishing, only to come home to our families).
That quiet plea to come home is what gets lost in the noise of geopolitical posturing. And it’s why the recent proposal of Prof. Rommel Banlaoi, during a recent forum organized by think-tank Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, deserves more than a passing headline.
He said the Philippines should position itself as a “bridge nation” by embracing China’s Maritime Community of Shared Future rather than being a proxy for the US in its rivalry with China.
For Mang Lito and the many others who wake up each morning hoping the sea will provide, this is plain and simple survival.
Honestly, the word dialogue may sound weak to many Filipinos right now. We’ve seen the harassment. We’ve read the reports — boats rammed, fishermen detained, bruises on those who just wanted to fish. The territorial conflict over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea involving the Philippines, Brunei, China, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam and the tension in the West Philippine Sea aren’t abstract things. They’re personal. So when someone says “choose dialogue,” the natural reaction is: with whom? The same coast guard that chases our fathers?
Banlaoi bares an uncomfortable truth: China has been our largest trading partner since 2016, with bilateral trade hitting $42.27 billion in 2024. That’s not pocket change. And the promised $24 billion in Chinese investments? Many never materialized — hampered by bureaucracy, high interest rates, and conditions favoring Chinese labor and materials. That’s not a reason to break our ties though. It should be a cause for smarter negotiation.
Because what’s the alternative? More patrol boats we can’t afford? Military exercises with thousands of foreign troops that make us feel protected, but don’t put rice on the table of Filipinos like Mang Lito? Aligning completely with the US might feel righteous, but righteousness doesn’t rebuild a pier.
As former Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. warned, excluding third parties like the US from the Code of Conduct could weaken our own legal position. Many see it as a paradox that the more we cling to outside powers, the less leverage we actually have.
Banlaoi, the president of the Philippine Society for International Security Studies and chairman of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, is careful to say that dialogue is not appeasement.
He’s right. Sitting at a table with Beijing — resuming the Bilateral Consultative Mechanism, negotiating the nine years’ stalled Asean-China South China Sea Code of Conduct by the 2026 target as the Philippines hosts the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit meetings — isn’t synonymous with surrender. It’s sovereignty exercised maturely. A kid throws a fit; a grown-up nation talks things out.
A legally binding framework — built on the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties to manage South China Sea disputes, prevent escalation, and ensure peace, cooperation, and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) compliance — the CoC is a set of rules for good manners at sea. As chairman of ASEAN this year, the Philippines has a historic chance to shape those rules rather than have them shaped for us.
Mang Lito doesn’t care about UNCLOS Article 121, which defines the regime of islands as naturally formed land above water at high tide that qualifies as an island with a full territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and continental shelf. However, rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life have no EEZ or continental shelf.
He cares that his son still wants to be a fisherman and send his own children to school. And that future of shared heritage, shared security, shared prosperity won’t come from shouting matches, water cannons, or missile launchers. It will come from the harder path of choosing dialogue even when it tastes like defeat.
So, don’t mistake restraint for retreat. Walking away from a fight you could win by choosing dialogue over defiance is never a weakness. It’s just being the only grown-up in the room, and everyone is watching how the “future is navigated together.”