FOR a country confronting a much larger power, standing alone is not necessarily a demonstration of courage. It may simply be an invitation to coercion.
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations has approved the Status of Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and France, clearing the way for the Senate as a whole to consider concurrence. Once completed, France will become our sixth visiting-forces partner, after the United States, Australia, Japan, Canada and New Zealand. Negotiations with the United Kingdom are also under way.
The expansion invites an important question: Are we building the strength needed to preserve peace, or turning to military solutions for a problem that, in the end, can only be settled through diplomacy?
We must begin by calling the agreement what it is — and what it is not.
A visiting-forces agreement is not a mutual-defense treaty. It does not automatically require France to go to war for the Philippines. It establishes the legal framework governing the temporary presence of military personnel, including their entry, training, exercises and criminal jurisdiction. It makes sustained cooperation possible but creates no automatic obligation to fight.
This distinction matters. We are not collecting war guarantees. We are building a network of countries capable of training, operating and responding together.
France is not merely a distant European visitor. It is a major Indo-Pacific power, with territories, citizens, military forces and an enormous exclusive economic zone in the region. It possesses naval reach, advanced aircraft, surveillance capabilities and a major defense industry. It has also supported the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos), freedom of navigation, and the 2016 arbitral ruling that rejected China’s sweeping claims in the South China Sea.
The strategic logic is clear.
China’s continuing unilateral actions have demonstrated the limits of Philippine power when exercised alone. Its coast guard, maritime militia, and naval forces operate in the gray zone — using water cannons, dangerous maneuvers, blockades, and floating barriers while remaining below the threshold of declared armed conflict.
This creates an ugly choice for a smaller country: retreat or escalate. Neither is acceptable. A network of partners creates a third option: Resisting coercion collectively while keeping escalation under control.
This is what Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. means when he says we must move in a pack. The pack raises the cost of intimidation. It provides more ships, aircraft, surveillance systems and witnesses. Just as important, it gives our armed forces more opportunities to learn how to operate with others during maritime emergencies, natural disasters and possible confrontations.
Most importantly, it prevents China from reducing the West Philippine Sea issue to a private quarrel between Beijing and Manila. When several countries sail, train and speak together in defense of international law, the issue becomes what it has always been: a test of whether rules or raw power will govern the seas.
The Philippines is not trying to surround China. Rather, it is responding to a situation in which China’s actions are causing concerned countries to find one another and band together.
There is also wisdom in broadening our partnerships beyond the United States. Our alliance with Washington remains the foundation of Philippine external defense, but no sovereign country should make its security completely dependent upon the policies, elections, or changing priorities of a single partner.
A wider network gives us more diplomatic options, more sources of equipment and training, and greater protection against sudden shifts in international politics. It is a form of strategic insurance.
But insurance must not become adventurism. An insurance policy is useful precisely because one hopes never to collect on it.
The danger is not in possessing alliances. The danger lies in forgetting their purpose. Military cooperation must support diplomacy, not replace it. Every exercise, port visit, and patrol must carry a clear political message: The Philippines seeks no foreign territory, threatens no country, and remains committed to the peaceful settlement of disputes. But it will neither abandon its lawful rights nor accept the proposition that might makes right.
Diplomacy without credible national power can become an endless exchange of protest notes. Power without diplomacy can become provocation. We require both — a shield strong enough to discourage coercion and a door that remains open to peaceful engagement.
Direct communication with Beijing must continue. Crisis hotlines and operational rules are necessary to prevent accidents from becoming armed confrontations. Practical cooperation may still be pursued where it does not compromise sovereignty. Asean must remain engaged, even if its consensus-bound processes often move painfully slowly.
None of this means pretending that dialogue is enough. It cannot mean negotiating while our fishermen are being driven away, our vessels are being blocked, and our rights are being steadily challenged on the water.
Secretary Teodoro’s directness has clearly irritated Chinese officials. He has become their favorite target, even being subjected to personal sanctions. To many Filipinos, however, the straight-talking and brilliant lawyer represents something long missing from our public posture: the courage to describe coercion without wrapping it in diplomatic euphemisms.
His clarity is valuable. But Philippine policy must never be reduced to one official’s personality.
Beijing would prefer to portray the disagreement as the product of a hostile defense secretary or an unusually confrontational administration. We must keep returning the issue to its true foundation. The rights being defended belong not to Teodoro, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., or any political faction. They belong to the Republic and to generations of Filipinos yet unborn.
And that is why the answer cannot consist only of agreements with foreign forces. It demands sustained modernization of our armed forces, a capable Coast Guard, stronger maritime law enforcement, protection for our fishermen, energy security, and an informed citizenry that understands why the West Philippine Sea matters.
Allies can reinforce national will. They cannot manufacture it for us.
We must indeed move in a pack. But the purpose of the pack is not to hunt, encircle, or provoke. It is to ensure that no member can be isolated, intimidated, or driven from waters protected by international law.
Military partnerships do not have to close the door to diplomacy. Properly managed, they give diplomacy a spine — not a license for confrontation, but the confidence to pursue peace without surrendering our rights.
As Winston Churchill said, “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war.”
