As President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. prepares to deliver his 4th State of the Nation Address (SONA), the same concerns continue to echo across the nation: affordable food, healthcare, jobs, and peace and order.
According to the latest Pulse Asia survey, inflation remains the top concern for the majority of Filipinos — not geopolitics, not the West Philippine Sea. People want relief from rising prices, accessible healthcare, decent employment, and safety in their communities. Even the President has said: “People want results, not more politics.”
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But the reality on the ground tells a different story. Prices keep rising. Jobs are scarce. Crime and corruption persist. Yet many politicians appear more interested in using the Philippines as a platform for great power confrontation than delivering actual services or solutions.
Filipinos at Risk – At Home and Abroad
We have handed over key strategic provinces — Palawan, Cagayan, Isabela, Zambales — to the American military through expanded EDCA sites. And in exchange, what have we gained? Certainly not better treatment for our overseas workers in the United States.
In fact, there are credible reports that Filipino OFWs may face deportation under new US policies. Even more outrageous, some are reportedly slated for deportation to unstable countries like Libya or El Salvador.
Back in the Philippines, our own fishermen are being banned from fishing in traditional waters — not by Chinese ships, but during American military exercises. They receive no compensation for lost income. No protest from government. No protection. Just silence.
Meanwhile, coral reefs are being destroyed by live-fire drills, and coastal communities in Palawan and Zambales are exposed to toxic waste from foreign militaries operating on our soil.
Selective Outrage, Skewed Narratives
Groups like Atin Ito have drawn headlines for symbolic gestures in the West Philippine Sea, yet remain conspicuously silent about thousands of Manila Bay fishermen displaced by massive reclamation projects — projects backed by business and political elites.
Where is the advocacy for these affected communities? Why the selective outrage?
While the Philippines Provokes, ASEAN Builds
The biggest tragedy is this: while our leaders posture on the global stage, the rest of Southeast Asia is moving forward — with China as their key partner.
China’s strategy in the region isn’t just military — it’s economic integration. The China-Laos railway now connects to Thailand and is expected to link all the way to Malaysia and Singapore. Indonesia, for its part, just launched the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail — the first in Southeast Asia — with Chinese support. These are not just trains. They are arteries of a new regional economy.
This pan-Asian railway corridor, stretching from Singapore through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, and into Yunnan province in China, is a game-changer. It allows goods, services, and people to flow freely across the region — bypassing the Philippines entirely.
While ASEAN states grow more interconnected with China through railways, ports, power grids, and tech parks, we’re still debating where to host foreign troops and whose war we’re willing to fight.
Even Cambodia, Vietnam, and Myanmar — despite historical tensions with China — have benefited from infrastructure projects, trade incentives, and tourism.
China uses hard power only with the Philippines, and soft power with the rest of ASEAN. The result? While our economy stagnates, theirs continue to expand.
Questions That Deserve Answers
Why are we allowing Filipino civilians to be used as human shields in disputed waters?
Why do we keep provoking China while knowing the potential consequences — a blockade of all Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea, or worse, military retaliation?
Are these provocations feeding hungry Filipinos? Are they creating jobs? Will they bring affordable rice to our tables?
And what of our sovereignty? After everything Marcos Jr. has given the US — from bases to diplomatic cover — America still slaps us with 20% tariffs. That’s not partnership. That’s exploitation.
Filipinos Deserve Better
We are not anti-America. We are pro-Filipino. But that means calling out hypocrisy. That means putting Filipino interests first — not being used as cannon fodder in someone else’s rivalry.
Let’s stop allowing foreign powers to dictate our future. Let’s stop being pawns in a geopolitical game that only benefits others. The children of this country deserve more than poverty, polluted seas, and policies dictated from Washington.
Let’s start demanding answers — and demanding results — from those in power. Before it’s too late.
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There is a new Sheriff in town and he is deporting people. There are about 350k pinoys who are illegal aliens. Now, there is this annual reporting for all foreigners in the US, like in the Philippines. Suck it.
@Ramon Ortoll
It’s as if you really think that a railway all the way to the Philippines will make the country better. FYI there can be no railway connecting the country with other asean nations. You rather be “friends” with the chinese than with the americans! Why? China are and will also exploit the filipinos as will the americans. It’s a choice between two evils.
With the exception of pro-China DDS supporters aka the Dutertards, Ramon Ortoll’s tactical gaslighting approach with his China-leaning submissions, being anything but effective and lacking credibility, they are not at all shared by most readers and commenters here in GRP website.
He claims, “our own fishermen are being banned from fishing in traditional waters — not by Chinese ships, but during American military exercises.”
And then, with his warning, he goes contradictory with himself: “Why do we keep provoking China while knowing the potential consequences — a blockade of all Filipino fishermen in the West Philippine Sea, or worse, military retaliation?”
Indeed, in order not to provoke China, former President Duterte, in 2016, banned fishing in shoal waters and announced the establishment of a no-fishing zone and marine sanctuary at a lagoon in the Scarborough Shoal.
True to his shameless open leaning towards China, GRP’s Mr. Ortoll, even wrote here before that “Scarborough Shoal isn’t actually ours.”
How far is Scarborough Shoal from China and the Philippines?
Scarborough Shoal, also known as Bajo de Masinloc or Panatag Shoal, lies 124 nautical miles from the northwestern Philippine province of Masinloc, Zambales. On the other hand, it is 472 nautical miles from China’s nearest land mass of Hainan province.
According to international law and a Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, the shoal is located within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
Both China and the Philippines are signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
It also appears, china boy Mr. Ortoll isn’t even aware about the existence and relenvance of the Teaty of Washington of 1900:
“This treaty affirmed that any islands belonging to the Philippine archipelago, even those outside the Treaty of Paris’ defined boundaries, were transferred to the United States, and subsequently became part of the Philippines upon its independence.”
There is no question about the Chinese natural and understandable pursuit of its own interest but the strange thing in question is Mr. Ramon Ortoll’s motivation.
Here’s something interesting:
From Ray Powell
“Since 2023, Chinese state media and pro-Beijing outlets have worked together to advance a synchronized message: that exposing clear maritime aggression is somehow provocative; that documenting dangerous maneuvers at sea constitutes “cognitive warfare”; that those standing up for their maritime rights must be beholden to foreign interests.
“The evidence of coordination is extensive and undeniable. For example, on July 30th 2024, Herman Tiu Laurel, president of the pro-Beijing Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, published an propaganda piece on China’s own state-run Global Times web site, in which he framed Philippine transparency operations as American-orchestrated provocations. Just four days later, on August 3, 2024, the Manila Standard published an article by Rod Kapunan that was not merely similar—it was nearly word-for-word identical. Paragraphs, phrases, and entire arguments were reproduced with only cosmetic changes. Both used shockingly identical language to attack transparency efforts, advance the same pro-China narrative, and target the same organizations and individuals—including me.”
Have doubts? See and read to believe:
China-Philippines ties may improve, as long as US stops interfering
By Herman Tiu Laurel Published: Jul 30, 2024 05:05 PM
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1317027.shtml
Blinken, Austin: Get out, stay out!
By Rod Kapunan August 3, 2024, 12:10 am
https://web.archive.org/web/20240917180545/https://www.manilastandard.net/opinion/314479575/blinken-austin-get-out-stay-out.html
well, Scarborough Shoal isn’t actually ours
Your statement is without meaning, lacks conviction, having no argument.
no amount of statements, convictions, and arguments will make scarborough shoal, ours
you really want to do something about scarborough shoal?
here’s how you do it:
you pull a gun, he pulls an ICBM with a nuclear warhead;
you send one of his to the morgue, he sends all of yours to kingdom come.
You missed the point though.
I was actually referring more about to the validity of your claim, that the shoal isn’t actually ours, than more about to your notion of the country dropping its claim, out of your fear of China, that is somewhat similar to the stand of the former President Duterte (his government’s decision is not to press the 2016 decision by the Permanent Court of Arbitration because the alternative was to go to war with China.), as if, we’re on the dead end as far as our legal claim to it is concerned.
Did China dropped its claim when Hong Kong was under the British rule from 1841 to 1997?
The British occupation of Hong Kong ended with the handover of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China only in July 1997.
Though the occupation of Hong Kong by the British was a result of the so called Opium Wars, its return to the Chinese was not a result of a war.
The Philippines isn’t dropping its claim.
Economic trade continues.
We’re not at war with China.
who occupies scarborough shoal now?
You guys are hilarious, you speak as if Filipinos and the Philippines actually matter? As if anyone in the west gives a damn about that 3rd world shithole PI, why does PI pay for the china USA feud you say? lol you guys act as if you need some brilliant technical philosophical argument to answer that question, it’s easy the Filipinos and the Philippines are a 3rd world shithole country and shithole peoples who will do what their masters tell them to do
Just last year the country started the negotiations for a free trade agreement with the EU among many other things. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/philippines/european-union-and-philippines_en So your notion that noone in the west gives a damn about the country is not true at all.
But your statement that the country and its people will do what their “masters” tell them to do are in some sense true as long as it is a poor country.
I think you have failed with this comment of yours, since noone can be taken seriously, he who tries so hard to bash the filipino people.
You have a small penis like the rest of the flipinos and therefore will be a subject of others forever no matter what
So called intellectual argument you can come up with ya bum, you third world poor person
this is correct, the philippines is the all singing, all dancing, crap of the world.
no one cares about the philippines and filipinos, as well that no one should.
now let duterte go.
No one cares, you say… and yet you care about letting duterte go?!
Seems very contradictory
dont panic, its just duterte.
he’s just a man.
and if youre not into drugs, you wont be killed.
@megget
So you do care? Come on, be honest! Doesn’t it screw up your soul/moral/psyche to deny that you contradicted yourself? 🙂
were you born a male, but now identify as female?
@megget
My answer is no. I’m now asking you the same thing
then you must have been dropped on your head one time too many when you were a baby.
@megget
Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?
You cannot escape from your contradiction you made. Deny it all you want, the thought of it will still be in the back of your head
@megget
Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?
You cannot escape from your contradiction you made. Deny it all you want, the thought of it will still be in the back of your mind.
not much more than having duterte’s nuts on your chin
Failippines is the way it is bc of its people and the deranged US empire and its people. Two clown shows, two laughing stocks riding around in belching gas jeepneys and fake smiles.
Bingo; they tap dance pilipino style to their vile US Waspy masters.
When Taiwan does not even want to join China, what does that say about Xi as China’s emperor? True power doesn’t need to assert itself. Like the source, everything is just drawn back to it.
Filipinos are poor? Entire nations are subject to exploitation and have become UNLIVABLE as a result of imposed unsustainable economic and development policies. Some leave as refugees and workers to live in land propped up by those exploitative strategies. Economic growth harnessed by the few translates to the ability for corporate colonialism. Private ownership that has no respect for another’s sovereignty and wants to take all the credit and benefit of human creativity.
No one really gives a rip. Most pilipinos dream is to leave the philipines unless you’re a US empire sexpat, or other retired us war monger looking for 20 somethings to have “fun” time with