A Lack of Oppurtunity

 A Lack of Oppurtunity 

January 1, 2026

The DND statement of December 31, 2025 reads as a performative, legally imprecise posture that moralizes without specifying Philippine interests, selectively invokes international law, and implicitly aligns Manila with external strategic narratives—thereby increasing strategic exposure without democratic or regional accountability.

Table of core weaknesses (attributes)

| Weakness | What it signals | Primary risk | Domestic gap | International implication |

|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|

| Moralizing ambiguity | Normative alignment with allies | Misaligned expectations; strategic drift | No clear national interest statement | Signals de facto alignment with US narratives |

| Selective law invocation | Legal rhetoric without specificity | Credibility gap in legal diplomacy | Undermines Manila’s SCS legal posture | Opens Manila to charges of inconsistency |

| Conflation of theaters | Cross-Strait vs maritime disputes collapsed | Unintended contingency posture | No congressional or public mandate | Internationalizes Taiwan question implicitly |

| “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vagueness | Incantation without red lines | Ambiguous commitments; escalation risk | No domestic reassurance on limits | Raises ally expectations without cost clarity |

| ASEAN omission | Absence of regional ownership | Loss of middle-power agency | Weakens Philippines’ ASEAN leadership claim | Perception of outsourcing regional strategy |

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Introduction and framing

The December 31 statement by the Department of National Defense (DND) condemns Chinese military activity near Taiwan as undermining “regional peace and stability” and affirms support for a “free, open, stable, and rules‑based Indo‑Pacific”. Read as a discrete text, it is rhetorically forceful; read against the Philippines’ diplomatic commitments—most notably the One China policy—and Manila’s recent South China Sea (SCS) legal posture, it is strategically hollow and politically performative.

Moralization without interest articulation

A defense statement must anchor normative claims to concrete national interests: territorial integrity, economic lifelines, or treaty obligations. The DND text moralizes—invoking “self‑restraint” and “international law”—but never specifies whether the Philippines views the Taiwan situation as a direct security threat, an ASEAN concern, or an allied contingency. This ambiguity converts a national defense voice into a signaling instrument for external audiences, particularly Washington, while leaving domestic constituencies and institutions uninformed.

Selective invocation of international law

The statement’s repeated appeals to “international law” and a “rules‑based order” are rhetorically potent but legally non‑committal. Manila’s insistence on legal precision in SCS disputes contrasts with the vagueness here; the DND notably omits any explicit reference to the One China policy that the Philippines officially recognizes, creating a credibility gap between legal rhetoric and diplomatic practice.

Conflation of strategic theaters

By asserting that cross‑Strait coercion affects the “broader Indo‑Pacific community,” the statement collapses Cross‑Strait dynamics into multilateral maritime disputes. That conflation effectively internationalizes the Taiwan question without democratic debate or legislative mandate, nudging the Philippines toward a de facto contingency posture with attendant operational and political costs.

Empty incantations and ASEAN absence

Phrases like “Free and Open Indo‑Pacific” function as empty incantations unless paired with red lines, rules of engagement, and domestic accountability. Equally striking is the absence of ASEAN framing or regional consultation—an omission that undermines Manila’s claim to middle‑power leadership and suggests outsourcing of regional strategy to alliance politics.

Conclusion: why this matters

A defense ministry’s public statement should clarify what is to be defended, why, and how. The DND’s December 31 text does none of these decisively; instead it performs alignment, borrows legal language selectively, and raises external expectations while offering no domestic clarity. The practical consequence is strategic exposure: ambiguity here is not neutrality but a tilt that can entangle the Philippines in crises for which it has neither mandate nor prepared costs. For a country poised to chair ASEAN in 2026, such performative posturing is not merely rhetorical—it is a failure of strategic stewardship.

Amiel Roldan's curatorial writing practice exemplifies this path: transforming grief into infrastructure, evidence into agency, and memory into resistance. As the Philippines enters a new economic decade, such work is not peripheral—it is foundational. 

Amiel Gerald Roldan   

I'm trying to complement my writings with helpful inputs from AI through writing. Bear with me as I am treating this blog as repositories and drafts.    

please comment and tag if you like my compilations visit www.amielroldan.blogspot.com or www.amielroldan.wordpress.com 

and comments at

amiel_roldan@outlook.com

amielgeraldroldan@gmail.com 

Amiel Gerald A. Roldan: a multidisciplinary Filipino artist, poet, researcher, and cultural worker whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, installation, and writing. He is deeply rooted in cultural memory, postcolonial critique, and in bridging creative practice with scholarly infrastructure—building counter-archives, annotating speculative poetry like Southeast Asian manuscripts, and fostering regional solidarity through ethical art collaboration.

Recent show at ILOMOCA

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