The year ahead offers the Philippines an opportunity to shape the regional agenda at a critical moment. On Jan. 1, Manila assumed the annually rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which empowers the Philippines to set the agenda and convene the regional bloc on issues it believes are of top concern. As the country’s role as chair comes with intense scrutiny, it also carries a real risk of underperformance. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his administration must navigate persistent intra-ASEAN divisions while hoping against all expectations that neither Beijing nor Washington further complicates matters. For Manila, 2026 will be a year of strategic tightrope walking.
On perhaps the most important security issue for the bloc, the Philippines has pledged to conclude a legally binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the increasingly contested South China Sea by the end of its chairmanship. The problem: Like many other ASEAN initiatives, this could be largely symbolic, since the text lacks any clear enforcement mechanisms and is unlikely to be legally binding at all. Rather, leaked details of the draft text suggest that ASEAN seeks to codify new compliance measures, such as the need to peacefully negotiate sovereignty disputes; implement confidence-building measures and procedures to manage incidents; and conduct joint oversight to ensure fulfillment of the COC’s obligations.
The year ahead offers the Philippines an opportunity to shape the regional agenda at a critical moment. On Jan. 1, Manila assumed the annually rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which empowers the Philippines to set the agenda and convene the regional bloc on issues it believes are of top concern. As the country’s role as chair comes with intense scrutiny, it also carries a real risk of underperformance. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his administration must navigate persistent intra-ASEAN divisions while hoping against all expectations that neither Beijing nor Washington further complicates matters. For Manila, 2026 will be a year of strategic tightrope walking.
On perhaps the most important security issue for the bloc, the Philippines has pledged to conclude a legally binding Code of Conduct (COC) in the increasingly contested South China Sea by the end of its chairmanship. The problem: Like many other ASEAN initiatives, this could be largely symbolic, since the text lacks any clear enforcement mechanisms and is unlikely to be legally binding at all. Rather, leaked details of the draft text suggest that ASEAN seeks to codify new compliance measures, such as the need to peacefully negotiate sovereignty disputes; implement confidence-building measures and procedures to manage incidents; and conduct joint oversight to ensure fulfillment of the COC’s obligations.
What’s more, even an aspirational, unenforceable agreement likely faces an insurmountable hurdle: Beijing has long resisted any compliance mechanisms that could constrain its behavior. China has specifically opposed language in the draft text that would ban constructing artificial islands; military use of maritime features such as reefs; blockades and other coercive actions; the establishment of air defense identification zones; or requiring advance notice for military exercises. By exempting such activities, Beijing has sought to undermine the ability of the COC to police exactly the type of bad behavior that affected littoral states want to rein in—and this is why China remains reluctant to sign on.
Beyond substantive disagreements, China is unlikely to grant the Philippines—its most vocal challenger in the South China Sea and a U.S. treaty ally—any political or symbolic victory during its ASEAN chairmanship. Instead, Beijing has kept pressure on the Marcos administration through gray-zone tactics, including ramming Manila’s naval patrols, targeting them with military-grade lasers, and attacking them with water cannons. These actions are intended to reinforce China’s so-called 10-dash line, a vast claim over the Taiwan Strait and most of the South China Sea, which is in large part shared by six other littoral states. China’s claim includes much of the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in direct contravention of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China also officially claims sovereignty over Brunei’s, Malaysia’s, Taiwan’s, and Vietnam’s EEZs, and the 10-dash line has some overlap with Indonesia’s EEZ as well.
China also sees an opportunity to test the Trump administration in order to assess the United States’ willingness to defend the Philippines under their mutual defense treaty. To its credit, the administration moved quickly to signal support in line with the alliance: U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Manila last year to announce the creation of Task Force Philippines—a joint military and operational team tasked with expanding cooperation and deterrence. At the same time, the administration has expressed its desire to stabilize relations with Beijing ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned visit to China in April. In the past, Trump has sought to avoid military confrontation over issues he views as peripheral to core U.S. interests. Notably, the administration’s new National Security Strategy made no mention of the Philippines—an omission that suggests U.S. alliance priorities may be shifting not just in Europe but in Asia, too.
Manila’s domestic politics further complicate its position. Although Marcos’s term runs through 2028, decisions made during the ASEAN chairmanship could shape the next presidential campaign. Vice President Sara Duterte has emerged as his chief political rival, backed by her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte. (The elder Duterte is currently standing trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity related to his 2016-22 anti-drug campaign.) Political tensions between the Marcos and Duterte camps include deep differences over China policy: Rodrigo Duterte favored accommodation with Beijing, while Marcos has leaned toward Washington. Sara Duterte has shown little hesitation in publicly challenging the administration of which she is still a part, a dynamic that could weaken Manila’s diplomatic cohesion at a sensitive moment.
ASEAN’s members concluded their third and final reading of the draft text in November 2024, clearing the way for its approval. Malaysia did not attempt to conclude the COC last year during its tenure as chair, probably because Beijing was not ready and doing so might have complicated the confrontation in the South China Sea. While Beijing remains unlikely to agree this time around, the fact that all of ASEAN (to include the bloc’s newest member, Timor Leste, which joined in 2025) supports compliance mechanisms gives Manila leverage. The likely failure to secure China’s buy-in, however, would raise uncomfortable questions about ASEAN’s ability to advance its most ambitious security goals.
The ongoing civil war in Myanmar presents another key challenge for Manila this year. The regime is in the midst of nationwide elections that most outside observers consider to be fraudulent and designed to bolster its grip on power. One plausible scenario is that one set of ASEAN members will recognize the results and another won’t, in effect splitting the regional bloc and putting pressure on the Philippines to maintain cohesion.
So far, Manila has fallen short of its diplomatic responsibilities over the Myanmar issue. Under the 2021 Five-Point Consensus, the ASEAN chair is tasked with appointing a special envoy to engage both the military junta and detained civilian leaders—and although the Philippines duly appointed the envoy, Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro, she only met with regime officials. Critics argue that her engagement risks legitimizing the junta while sidelining the opposition. Although several ASEAN members have taken similar approaches, the Philippines—given its democratic credentials—is held to a higher standard. A more balanced approach that includes outreach to opposition figures may be necessary to preserve ASEAN’s credibility.
ASEAN members attacking each other will also test Manila’s leadership. Last year’s border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand were among the most violent in decades, and the cease-fire brokered late last year remains fragile. If fighting resumes, it will be the Philippines’s turn to demonstrate whether ASEAN can manage military conflicts among its own members without relying on external powers, as Malaysia did when the United States and then China stepped in to broker a resolution of the Cambodia-Thailand conflict.
The broader strategic environment may prove even more difficult to manage. Many ASEAN states welcome U.S. security engagement in the region to balance China, but they are deeply frustrated by the Trump administration’s imposition of steep tariffs. Philippine goods now face a 19 percent tariff in the United States, a surprisingly high rate for a long-standing treaty ally. Last year’s efforts to forge a unified ASEAN position and negotiating strategy collapsed, leaving members to pursue their own bilateral arrangements with Washington. Indeed, it is hard to see how Manila could succeed where Kuala Lumpur failed.
Furthermore, U.S. leadership and participation in groupings such as the Quad, AUKUS, and the newer Pax Silica framework—which includes Singapore—feed concerns that Washington’s growing focus on security makes the struggle to turn ASEAN into a more effective regional actor even more difficult. The Philippines, however, is generally in favor of such security initiatives. As one of only two U.S. treaty allies in Southeast Asia, Manila may struggle to justify its support for these arrangements to its neighbors, particularly against the backdrop of expanded military exercises and patrols that non-ASEAN powers are conducting, at times directly on the Philippines’s behalf, in the South China Sea and the heightened risk of confrontation with China.
At the same time, Beijing continues to expand its influence across the region. Several ASEAN members have deepened ties with China-led institutions, including BRICS—of which Indonesia became a full member last year—and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China has leveraged infrastructure investment to build political goodwill across Southeast Asia. Beijing has also taken advantage of growing regional angst over the Trump administration’s tariffs. Shortly after Trump announced his tariffs last April, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Vietnam, pledging to avoid tariff wars, enhance regional stability, and promote predictable relations. Today, Beijing is more entrenched in Southeast Asia than at any point in recent history.
A sustained U.S.-China detente also remains possible, holding significant strategic implications for ASEAN and Manila’s chairmanship. Trump has repeatedly signaled interest in improving relations with Beijing, and his upcoming visit may clarify the administration’s approach. Improved ties could reduce operational friction between U.S. and Chinese forces, benefiting regional stability. But they could also undermine Manila’s objectives. If Beijing concludes that a mutually accommodating new arrangement with Washington gives it greater leeway for assertiveness in the Philippines’s EEZ, it may be even less inclined than now to accept a binding COC that would restrict its actions.
The Philippines has assumed the ASEAN chair at a fraught geopolitical moment. Success is not out of reach: Manila has an agreed draft COC text, options to recalibrate its Myanmar diplomacy, and manageable regional disputes. Failure, however, would carry broader implications. If the Philippines cannot advance ASEAN’s most consequential security initiatives under sustained Chinese pressure and with uncertain U.S. backing, it may signal that the limits of an ASEAN-led regional order have been reached. In 2026, Manila’s performance will therefore matter far beyond its own borders.
