THE most consequential declaration from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in his more than three years as leader of the nation bar none was something he probably said half-seriously and only very recently, and which very few noticed. It was binding his administration, unequivocally he said, to the ethos of a “rules-based order.” Was he seriously committed to that or was that an instance of presidential semantics wanting to find gravitas and relevance? Was it pure boilerplate? We don’t know. But give that statement full context that includes the important global backdrop, and you will indeed rank it as the most important presidential declaration ever made. Let us look at the shattered global order.
The first major blow to the sworn commitment of major democracies to live by the full edicts of the rules-based international order was, ironically, the major disruption in an area where disruption was least expected: global trade. The April 2, 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs unilaterally imposed by US President Donald Trump were of the protectionist kind last seen during the mercantilist period and rendered passe by US-led efforts to usher in an era of seamless movement of goods across borders over the past 90 years. The General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which later gave way to the World Trade Organization (WTO), were the institutions created by the long and patient global effort to foster what was hoped as a permanent regime of free and somehow fair trade.
There was zero reason for the tariff impositions. Not a single country in the world was taking advantage of the US in the area of trade which had two rules: parity and fairness. On the political side, the ruinous tariffs were imposed mostly on the major trading partners and reliable allies of the US. On the economic side, the tariff impositions were so unhinged that they covered uninhabited islands populated by penguins. Or such places as Diego Garcia island, which serves as a strategic US military installation in the middle of the Indian Ocean where even the mere concept of global trade is non-existent.
The last straw that finally led Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to declare several days back that the international global order as the democratic nations across the world knew it was over was the National Security Statement (NSS) of the US, where the US declared its intent to focus on the domination of the Western Hemisphere. In that same document came the warning that unless Europe changes its welcoming nature and tolerance for people of other races and creeds, it would face “civilizational erasure.” Trump’s public declaration to take Greenland by all means possible, the Maduros’ extraction from Venezuela and the plan to annex Canada added to the fear that the US no longer adheres to the basic principles of peace, comity and cooperation, which are the main elements of a rules-based international order, and is now reverting to old-fashioned imperialism.
On the domestic front, the biggest issue confronting the Marcos administration is infrastructure corruption, which is essentially an assault on the rules of government bidding and procurement and the corruption of the national budget process rooted in the just-as-corrupt congressional pork barrel system. A trinity of bad actors — corrupt lawmakers and top executive branch officials, corrupt officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways and complicit private contractors — disregarded the bidding and budgetary rules to amass billions of pesos, or possibly trillions, in kickbacks.
It is factual to state that the assault on the rules on fair bidding and the budgetary process — a deadly double whammy on rules — which led to the unprecedented level of corruption, has a multiplier effect. The anemic flow of foreign direct investments (FDI) is one. Why will foreign investments move into a country beset with official corruption? The failure to meet growth targets last year is the more dismal evidence that corruption dampens economic growth. The call from many prominent figures in the entertainment sector to withhold tax payments until the corruption issue is firmly dealt with manifests the strain unchecked corruption imposes on the social contract.
It is up to Mr. Marcos Jr. as the unquestioned point man in all things covered by foreign relations to deftly define the Philippine position as the US, the leader of the free world, imposes ruinous tariffs and rachets up its imperial ambitions targeting its close trading partners and traditional allies. Will he do a Mark Carney and find alliances and trading partners elsewhere as the US reverts to a hegemon? Or will he just sit idly hoping against hope that the storm will pass and normalcy would return in the US?
On the domestic front, he can deploy the defined powers to the executive branch that he leads, especially the prosecutorial powers of his justice department, to make those guilty of corruption accountable. Then plug all loopholes in the government bidding and procurement process to rein in the pork barrel system.
He can issue two reminders: for the legislative branch to moderate its greed and for the Supreme Court to avoid judicial overreach and stop redefining the impeachment process.
He should himself respect the impeachment process and face squarely the recent impeachment cases filed against him.
As a symbolic act, he, the Senate president, the speaker of the House of Representatives and the chief justice of the Supreme Court should sign a statement all pledging fealty to the basic requirement of a republic that requires, first and foremost, adherence to the rules.
