[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] good morning everyone um we will be starting in 9:05 a.m. again we will be starting 9:05 a.m. thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] w [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Music] hello hi everyone good morning to our speakers and the distinguished guests from The Diplomatic Community the private sector the academ and Civil Society so I am Dana Denai I am the chief of staff of the Strat based group and I will be your host for today Welcome to our post on a forum entitled the two years of Marcus Jr Administration assessments and policy recommendations so this event is actually organized by the Democracy watch Philippines in partnership with Strat based ADR Institute um so this is actually a virtual event so thank you to everyone who took the time to join us uh through Zoom and also through FB Liv stream thank you for everyone who is watching us this morning so as the Marcus Jr Administration culminates its second year and phases into its third year a timely assessment of its performance in different sectors and the challenges it has injured in the first two years is warranted this serves as a barometer along which its midterm performance can be gauged and also becomes the basis of prognosis and evaluation for the remaining years of its term and that is why today we are bringing together top political econ economic and National Security Experts who will provide their insights and assessments on President bong bong Marcus Junior's two years in office and enumerate policy recommendations moving forward especially in light of the upcoming 2025 midterm elections so to officially start the Forum today we actually have a recorded opening remarks from the president of Strat based ADR Institute and lead convenor of democracy watch Philippines um unfortunately he is not able to to join us today he is actually giving um speaking engagements in Washington DC so nevertheless he sent us this recorded message let us all welcome Professor Victor Andres dindo manhit and Welcome to our Strat based institutes Forum as part of our democracy Watch program on an overview of the two years of the Marcus Jor administ Administration in stat base we have always trapped what we call our geopolitical risk and opportunities and as we track these issues very important is what we call the cost of living crisis we live in a fragile global economy but we are challenged by poverty low income and limited job opportunities and we' have seen how inflation has affected the lives our people it's reflected in the latest PSE Asia urgent National concern that as we ended second year of President bong bong Marcus Jr's Administration we see on top economic issues like inflation pay of workers Rising poverty lack of jobs and even addressing in voluntary H we have seen the performance of this Administration on this important National issues quite low and it's also reflected even on our own government's data our consumer Outlook where there is a weak confidence as they look into the incoming quarter why faster increasing the prices ofs higher household expenses lower income fewer available jobs and it's simply same as what the pulse Asia data shows us so moving to the next four years of this micos Administration we need to look back to where we have been growth has been sustained we know the consumer economy continues to drive our growth but how can we spur investment driven job generating grow at the manufacturing sector the services cannot keep on pulling our growth Agri continues to be laggy but we need an agroindustrial support based to improve our growth trajectory Outlook remains to be positive but in the words of our president Economic Security is National Security these are two concerns as we Face 2024 to 2028 period of this Administration and in Strat base ADR Institute we have defined this as an asymmetric security challenge that we face in this multipolar world we continue to be positive under the leadership of Marcos that we can even rise as a middle power economically and also in the traditional security space but we deal with the reality of Gray Zone operations we deal with the reality of disinformation and misinformation the words of our secretary of defense when and he delivered keynote address for our Institute in our first conference this year the Philippines is patient zero for vulnerability and for me if I wear my heart as a political scientist this is causing the political divide in the digital space as disinformation misinformation and cyber security threats impact our politics impact Our Lives we have seen that not only on security issues we see that also in the political discourse that's why I've shared that we are still in a pandemic of misinformation and we need to stop the spread of disinformation campaign in the west Philippines Sea and even an economic issues they have weaponized social media they have organized message targeting and propaganda campaigns through PS that have Amplified disinformation and public opinion manipulation in social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube there is an information Warfare and in Strat Bas ADR Institute with our in our program the Democracy watch we would like to address this we would like to raise this as an issue as we go into the 2025 election the public for two quarters have raised issue of magulo corrupt wat imagine the top three description of Philippine politics is negative and we see that in in in my next slide that maybe even the performance rating of our own government officials are being brought down by attacks and counterattacks in cyber space we don't see it much in traditional broad sheets traditional media but we see it in social media so we expect political divide and we expect this to be reflected on the performance and Trust rting of our officials this is what we're facing after 2 years of bong Marcus Jr of search let us we move into the third year until the end its political timeline June 30 2028 the Marcus Administration Bes set with challenges and opportunities spanning across sectors agation political spectrum and geoeconomic and geopolitical this are our recommendations we need to address the key concerns of the Filipino people we need to create more jobs and promote economic growth beyond the service sector we need to improve on the manufacturing sector we need to have an agroindustrial sector it can be achieved through policies that attract beneficial investment not greater trade with our Northern neighbor basically look as as as a Market we need to support small mediumsized Enterprises for what purposes they can be part the global supply chain they can be part of key security products like semiconductors we can even provide incentives for industries that will generate employment especially as we realize and appreciate her demographic strength strong population a young population we should incentivize Industries to grow in this set we need to embrace digital transformation not only in governance but also in Service delivery across public and private sector we encourage the administration to invest in digital infrastructure passage of the e-governance initiatives that could lead to a framework to the digitization of the public sect we have passed the procurement law but we need to digitize the process but we also need to see ourselves as one nation competing at the regional level competing in the broad region of Indo Pacific that's why we need to strengthen collaborative stakeholder engagement we encourage and support initiatives for open governance for stakeholders including business Community Civil Society organization and citizens are Essentials and actively participating and demanding effective and responsive governance we need to continue to promote Economic Security Maritime Security in the west willc we need to always remember to assert our Maritime rights based on international law to protect our territorial Integrity for the Filipino people for the future Filipino generation we also need the Marcus Administration to continue to solidify its stand and take proactive actions to defend an exclusive economic Z and expand International Regional alliances in treaties with like mined states that would really make us a middle power in the next four years of this Administration again I thank everyone as we continue to work under our democracy Watch program the through governance responsive governments transparent and accountable governments we can strengthen the core of the Philippine Republic and move this country forward to sustain growth to be on top of the region and uplift up lives of the Filipino people thank you very much Professor D manhit for that very insightful opening message um thank you also for setting the tone for our discussion today so can we all give him a virtual Round of Applause please all right so Professor manit was able to provide a general background of where we are now two years into the Marcus Jr Administration so now we will listen to experts in various sectors as they Prov their assessment of the last two years of Marcus Jr Administration and pro provide policy recommendations especially in light of the upcoming 2025 midterm elections so I'm pretty sure it's uh dark outside all our rooms right now but I'm 100% sure as well that there will be a lot of bright ideas and insights that will be shared uh by our speakers so our first speaker for today will talk about the economic environment Investments trade and ease of doing business he is a political and economic columnist at the Philippine Star and business World ladies and gentlemen let us all welcome Mr Andrew migan thank you Dana um always a pleasure to be uh speaking here uh at the uh Strat based ADR Institute thank you for inviting me uh I always counted a privilege to share my thoughts with Academia the media Diplomatic cors Corps and those in government uh I actually prepared a uh a presentation we can just pull that up please okay thank you so here's the big question is the economy doing good this question must be asked as president Marcus hits his second year mark As chief executive of the Republic as we all know the response to this question is never a straight one so let me break it down let me start by saying that the Philippines is arguably the most overlooked and undervalued economy on the planet for decades we've been typ casted as an economic underachiever who is unable to get its leadership act together those who put this stereotype on us have a point after all our per capita income of $4,030 us is still less than a third of the global average of 12,660 our poverty rates of 15.5% remains the highest among Assan six and unemployment persists but we must acknowledge that the that things have changed since 2010 and that the reforms we have put in motion put in motion have begun to bear fruit the Eon the economy is now on a steady Ascent upward first we have to establish the benchmarks to truly measure our our success can we move to the next slide please these are the benchmarks we all know this already in 2015 the National Economic Development Authority laid the country's National development plan for the next 25 years or until the year 2040 Plan called ambition not in 2040 this serves as both as both our goal and our Benchmark for Success basically by the year 2040 government aims for all Filipinos to enjoy a strongly rooted comfortable and secure life characterized by an econ an economy with a nominal GDP of $1.3 trillion a per capita income of $1,000 zero poverty and zero incidents of hunger reduced income inequalities and first world infrastructure but to get there we must realize our short-term goals this is embodied in the Philippine development plan 2022 up to 2028 or during the Marcus era the short-term targets are by 2028 we must attain an average growth rate of between 6 to 8% we must reach a GDP of 614 by the year 614 billion uh Us doll by the year 2028 a thing per capita income of 6,571 or a 41% increase from 2023 levels to attain an employment rate of 4% unemployment rate of 4% and attain a poverty rate of only 8.8% so how has the economy perform next slide please between 202010 and 209 the Philippines posted an average growth rate of 6.4% substantially higher than the 4% average growth rate of emerging economies post pandemic or from 2021 to 2023 the Philippines clocked in an average growth rate of 6.3% higher than the 4.6 uh average grow growth rate of emerging economies in 2020 asan economy and second fastest in uh in Asia having grown by 5.6% only Indonesia and Vietnam came close both growing at 5.05% for this year the World Bank IMF and ADB agreed that the Philippines will be uh will grow between 5.8 to 6.2% outpacing Vietnam growth rate is four will be 4.7 to 5.8% Vietnam will be the second fastest growing economy in asan so as of the first quarter of this year the economy grew as we all know by 5.7% now let's talk about poverty rates the Philippines managed to cut poverty rates by half in 15 years from 35% in 2009 to 18.1% in 2022 since Marcos took over two years ago poverty rates have to 15.5% Marcus has four years to bring down poverty rates to 9% I believe this is doable in terms of inflation while the world battled higher inflation uh last year uh the Philippines um the inflation in the Philippines dropped from 8.7% which was the high in January 2023 to just 3.7% as of last June in terms of unemployment the Philippines was uh has done very well unemployment rates have dropped to 99.9% the lowest since 2005 now let's talk about infrastructure spending infrastructure spending has been sustained at above 5% of GDP since 2015 it stood at 5.8% in of GDP in 2022 and also 5.8% in 2023 this year it should be at five 5% of GDP we are committed to sustain infrastructure spending at between 5 to 6% until 2028 at present we have 197 infrastructure Flagship projects in the pipeline with a collective value of 156.43 of these projects are DED dedicated to physical uh connectivity connectivity which includes roads rails and ports 44 projects uh of these 197 are dedicated to Water Resources as for the national debt our debt to GDP ratio improved slightly from 6.9% of GDP in 2022 uh which was the post-pandemic uh number to very slightly improved to 5.7 uh 57.6% as of the third quarter of 202 23 it stands at 60.2% today in terms of Revenue collection our Revenue collection rate improved by 6.8% year on-year last year it stood at 16% of GDP as of June 30 however government needs to work on raising this to 17.1% to meet its Revenue collection targets by the year 2028 the real challenge however is to bring bring Revenue collection up to aan standards which now stands at 19% so there's some ways to go some ways to go the country's gross International reserves are more than adequate at 101.3 billion as of the end of 2023 sufficient for 7.5 months of imports it further improved to 103.4 billion as of last May next slide please well we enjoy way while we are enjoying strong economic fundamentals the country also has structural weaknesses the counts the country's engines engines for growth are household consumption on the expenditure side and services in the production side both comprise about 34s of gross national product we are an economy driven by consumer and government spending not by Investments Productions and exports and here lies the basic weakness of the economy if you look at our FDI performance the Philippines intake is less than half of Vietnam well these are due to many reasons primary of which are well the restrictive conditions of the or provisions of the Constitution which still has a long black list of Industries where foreign foreign companies are cannot participate um gaps in Supply chains are also an issue as with infrastructure bottlenecks as a result the velopment the development of our industrial sector has been stunted growth you will find that in the last 12 years the manufacturing sector has only grown faster than the services sector or the service sector three times that was in 2014 2017 and 2021 this is an indication of a weak industrial sector in contrast the service sector has grown at a rapid rate a weak industrial base translates to weak export earnings you will find that the Philippine merchandise exports up are performance in ex Philippine merchandise exports are yeah sorry has been the lowest among aans major economies well to be fair to president Marcos his efforts to promote an investment Le growth has not come unnoticed he installed a credible economic team and embarked on a world World Wide Road Show to attract Investments the road show billion dollar in investment commitments but turning these into hard currency is another story to this Marcus created the position of Special Assistant for investment and economic Affairs headed by secretary Frederick go this office was created to ensure that investment commitments are indeed realized well it has not happened yet FDI data from the bsp uh updated until February shows that cumulative fdis um in the first two months of the year amounted to only 2.3 billion while it's higher by that uh while it's higher by 48% compared to the same period last year um it's still not enough to make the transition to an investment L economy so there's a lot of opportunity for reform in this respect but there is good news Les next but there is good news our problem our problem in the west philippin sea with China comes with a silver lining following the trilateral trilateral summit uh Summit last April between the US Japan and the Philippines our trilateral allies have committed to invest some 100 billion into the Philippines over the next 5 years next slide Place investments will come in the form of physical and digital infrastructure defense Hardware renewable energy Next Generation Communications semiconductor manufacturing mining of Rare Minerals nuclear power uh and advanced biology Advanced Technologies like Quantum Computing for context 100 billion is 11 times the amount of foreign investments we generated last year it is substantial the geographic Geographic focus of these investments will be the lazon economic Corridor Park Metro Manila until Batangas now the big question is will these Investments materialize we'll have to wait and see but off the record I have come to know that the Japanese already have an investment agenda in place and they are in various stages of implementation I know too that the Americans um investment agenda is still subject for discussion at this moment it's still conceptual uh and still being developed so nothing concrete yet on the American side Japan is also investing to capacitate our Workforce our Workforce training programs are a foot to specialize in specialized disciplines such as application engineering data science AI cloud computing and the like these training programs are meant to help the Philippines raise uh rise in the value chain of service exports next slide please another reason to be optimistic is that next slide please good news for the first time in our history Revenue revenues of our it BPM industry surpassed those of OFW remittances in 2023 the it BPM industry generated 35.4 billion in revenues representing 8% of GDP it employed 1.7 million workers now the optimistic forecast of the of the information technology and business processing business process Association of the Philippines or ibap is that the it BPM industry will attain a 5 uh 58.9 billion uh will attain 58.9 billion in revenues by the year 2028 and employ 2.5 million workers next slide please perhaps unbeknownst to you the the Philippines is already the world's number one provider of contact centers also uh in healthcare services we are number two we are the number two provider of it and Digital Services second to India and number two in global in-house Center services but the Marcus Administration must prepare for artificial intelligence and here lies the challenge AI threatens to render our contact centers it and Healthcare Services obsolete we must prepare for this the it BPO industry must reconfigure itself using I AI as an enabler and I know that the DTI has a well-considered um uh AI develop development road map in place so now it's really a matter of implementing it likewise the entire industry must climb the value chain leverage leveraging on future forward Technologies such as ma machine learning extended reality and the like so the it BPO Industries projected to employ 2.5 million workers by the year 2028 from 1.7 million workers today problem is we are running out of skilled Talent so the thing is the deped can no longer drop the ball as our greatest competitive Advantage remains to be our Workforce next next uh slide please now this is something unique uh perhaps first time you may have learned uh will hear about this just like the Filipino people the Philippine economic model is unique in the region to State the obvious we are not a Taiwan or Vietnam who is renowned for their manufacturing prowess neither neither are we a Singapore or Hong Kong Who were rowned or known for being a logistics or finan and Financial Center I can best describe the Philippine economy aggressively middle of the road what do I mean by aggressively middle of the road take this into consideration our service sector driven by it bpms is not one based on high-tech services like artificial intelligence or Quantum Computing rather we do the basics like uh contact Services contact centers and healthcare service Services it and back office office services in semiconductors we do not manufacture Advanced chips but simple microchips used for everyday Gadgets in electronics we do not manufacture Precision equipment but domestic appliances and simple Gadgets in ship building we do not man manufacture Mega container container vessels but simple Thug boats fairies and fishing V vessels in my manufacturing the Philippines is not a specialist in complex indust products such as food and simple manufacturers even among our msmes the majority of our entrepreneurs or their interent entrepreneurial excuse me entrepreneurial Pursuits are not based on technological innovation but simple Technologies among OFW among our ofws the majority are not highly level professionals the majority but caregivers nurses and Retail workers next slide please in short the Philippines is a specialist in products and services products and services of low to midlevel complexity but doing a lot of it but make no mistake we are on the path to Prosperity there's nothing wrong with being aggressively middle of the road so long as we eventually get to our final destination and that destination is a dignified Abundant Life for all interest to stay on the right path we must climb the value chain in the products and services we produce baring no untoward untoward event and assuming infrastru INF infrastructure backlogs are sorted out the Philippines will become a trillion doll economy economy by the year 202 uh 2033 with a per capita income shy of $7,500 us next slide please so let me swing back to the basic question is the Marcus Administration on track towards attaining per cap the per capita income or his goal of per capita income amounting to 6571 by by the year 2028 it is not not likely going to happen according to schedule this is because the Workforce moving away from agriculture are M like retail and Hospitality Hospitality due to an underdeveloped industrial sector we are lacking in high value sectors like manufacturing like manufacturing and Industry to move them into that said I see per capita income settling at approximately 5,150 by the year 2028 and poverty rates settling at 10.7% both missing the targets all things being equal we will hit the 6,571 per capita income Target between 2030 and 2031 we will get there but it will take longer to do so so in summary next slide please challenges the Philippine the overall assessment of the Philippine economy is positive the economy is moving in the right direction but to achieve High income status the Philippine um must accelerate the development of its industrial sector the forthcoming investments from from our trilateral partners Japan and the US will be a big help in this in the it BPM space we must climb the value chain leveraging on future forward Technologies and prepare for AI investment in education must be made a priority so uh again it's an optimistic uh Outlook I have an optimistic Outlook we will get to our goals in distilling it to the be to the basics we will get to our targets but perhaps not in 2028 it will take us longer to do so thank you very much oops thank you very much Mr Andrew masan and on behalf of Strat base I would also like to greet you a very happy birthday thank you for taking the time to join us this morning thank you sir I do agree that the Philippine economy is one that is often overlooked so thank you for that very optimistic briefing um our economy is definitely one that holds a lot of Promise as the fastest growing economy in southeast Asia so our next speaker for today will talk about the 2025 midterm contest governance and electoral prospects he is a senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines Asian Center and a non-resident fellow of the Strat based ADR Institute so joining us right now uh let us all welcome Mr Richard hadarian hello everyone can you hear me uh yes yeah first of all let me apologize for joining you under this circumstances I I missed my flight because of the crazy flooding so I hope my voice and all gets through just enough and the connection is not too bad let me also of course greet my very good friend Andrew on his birthday and also excellent presentation which I think definitely sets a tone for uh my own little intervention here um just to be clear this uh my presentation today is a snipplet of a longer spark paper I think now at around 9,000 words that should come out soon so for those who are interested they can check that out not to mention just a couple of hundred articles I've written on Dem Marcus Administration so far I think if you look at the presentation by Andrew w go uh it makes sense in a sense that it essentially average is the new sexy right uh in a sense that let's not expect 10 out of 10 for the Philippines over the next uh three four five years but at least the Philippines has gone from zero to five right and and the idea is how do we go to seven out of 10 and that's that's essentially the tone uh and Cadence of my interventions in my speaking engagements practically InterContinental speeches every month over the past six or seven months the quiet rise of the Philippines this is essentially how I see uh how the world is seeing the Philippines and how I see the Philippines um in the six months uh prior alone I think I had three interviews with The Economist magazine among others and there was a very interesting piece by The Economist magazine recently that look at the Philippines how we're quietly getting richer so the good news is that I think we're not totally overlooked like before but we have to get some of the fundamentals right if the Philippines is going to fulfill at least much of his potential in the com years let me quickly go through the politics and then look at how the broader political economy will be laid out for the Philippines can we go to the next slide please yeah so I mean first of all we have to properly understand why we have another Marcos as our president I think we have to be honest that a lot of us uh here in the panel and Beyond we're not necessarily fans of Marcus Jr when he ran for the presidency and I think a lot of people had a lot of doubts about him both in terms of his domestic policy foreign policy positioning so I think we have to be honest about that at the same time I think we have to be also honest about the reasons why the elections turned out the way it turned out I think a lot of our friends especially in the media um are very much focused on the impact of disinformation and I think thisinformation obviously is a problem but I think it's just a small part of a bigger uh you know uh set of factors that contributed to the victory of Marcos and the UN te uh in last year's election so if you look at a couple of surveys I've posted there also on my book on du why du1 in 2016 and my my writings including my journ of democracy piece and return of democracies if you look at it survey after survey over the past decade has said that vast majority of Filipinos were open to the idea of an authoritarian leader precisely because they were sicken tired of the dysfunctions and deficiencies of our standard democratic practices you can look at the PE Research Center in 2017 where um you know when people were asked would you rather have a government that is even even care about you know any kind of checks and balances um you know uh 50% in the Philippines Senate it's totally fine with them and uh you know uh so that and and if you look at other surveys by also P survey it showed that close to eight out of 10 Filipinos were open to the idea of an authoritarian leader only 15% of Filipinos in a PE survey in 2017 said that no they want a government based on checks and balances these numbers go back actually earlier uh in an earlier book I wrote on duter there's this 2014 World value survey that showed that again similar questions are you open to an author leader in the Philippines and numbers were at 60% so dysfunction deficiencies of our democracies have made what political sociologists call disciplinary politics extremely extremely attractive the good news is that we're not alone look at the numbers in India look at the numbers in Indonesia very similar numbers and surprise surprise you have someone like Modi or PR in charge of those kinds of countries so I think first of all we have to understand why the 2022 elections turned out the way it did which is a supereme majority vote for people who represented not necessarily liberal democracy or at least represented illiberal democracy or what I call disciplinary politics uh in this case now can we go to the next slide I don't want to delve too much into that we're going to get into a long debate now before Marcus Jr took over the presidency I had a piece whereby I look at the three factors that will shape his term in reign in office one was which version of Marcos Jr we're going to see because if you bother to look at history actually Marcos Jr was as one columnist put it the last Hawk he was literally in military comouflage in the final hours of his father's regime he wanted his father to take a more uh Draconian if not violent stance uh towards uh you know the end of his father's regime and in fact his father eventually relented so this idea of Marcus Jr as this kind of a monolithically prodigal son is not backed up by evidence this is a person who has many shades of characters to him so the question always was are we going to see a more mild mannered temperamentally cautious Marcus Jr or now that he won an emphatic elections is he going to be you know show us a different side of him that was very important to me because I always appreciated the many shades of uh character that Marcus Jr has displayed throughout his lifetime the other one was of course what will be the intra Coalition politics more uh pejoratively intra cartel politics who's really the power behind the throne uh a number of Articles early on said it would be Sarah duterte because after all the dues were the main factor behind it um so it was always important to see how will Marcus manage this intra uniting intra Coalition politics and the third factor is package of incentives I always saw Marcus Jr as a very pragmatic person when it comes to foreign policy so it was a matter of what what will China and West offer him in terms of strategic reassurances and also strategic Investments can we go to the next slide now early on this are the writings I had one of them is literally 24 hours after the election Victory I immediately said no cause for panic and in fact in terms of foreign policy I was always cautiously optimistic on Marcus Jr because as I argued very early on he's going to be more like his father Marcus Senor than tatti Deo right more father than tatti and if you look at Marcos Senor we may have disagreements with him on some domestic issues but when it comes to West Philippines Sea Marcos Senor always took the right position he was proactive in fact he was so proactive on West Philippine Sea uh that we had the first modern air strip in 1977 1978 uh that the Americans got scared that they'll be dragged into this conflict because of the proactive stance of the pH Philippines and my understanding was that shadow of his father a proactive man when it comes to foreign policy would influence how the Sun would operate and you know based on our interviews with Ambassador males and other people who are familiar with both the father and the son it looks like that kind of analysis always had some substance to it and this is precisely what we saw not long after he won the elections and made it very clear that his stance on the west Philippines Sea was not going to be the kind of stance that many people were scared of um which of course Marcus I mean Marcus had every reason to sound more like duterte when he was running for the presidency because of the uh uniting Coalition but once he won as a president elect he made it clear the arbitration award is final and binding and among the first foreign envoice he met were not Chinese were Koreans Indians uh Japanese Americans and not to mention top American officials so that's why I think from the very beginning uh there was this cautious optimism that it will not turn out as essentially another dictatorship or essentially theer 2.0 for who were more critical of those type of leadership next so to make it very simple actually if you look at it again just as Andrew said we're not doing 10 out of 10 but we're doing six or seven out of 10 when it comes to the economy and perhaps we can do even better than that if we can get some Basics right my understanding is it's the same thing on politics maybe Marcos Jr is not turning out as you're kind of a progressive liberal Democrat but he is the unlikely reformer that I think we have to give credit to on the draw drug war he has significantly recalibrated the drug war I understand my friends in the human rights Community are saying there's still extrajudicial killings or some deaths under suspicious circumstances but I think anyone who has looked at the substance of his drug war it's nowhere as deadly violent and extrajudicial as we saw under the previous administration in terms of red tagging in terms of uh you know uh in terms of you know harassment of the media or relationship with the media on all of those fronts we see a a tremendous shift uh in terms of relationship with the media between the media and the Marcus Jr Administration now obviously who am I to question the independence of the courts but coincidentally suddenly we see court cases going in favor of a lot of people who were the betano and who are in the opposition whether it's the mar ressa's case whether it's uh Lea de Lima's case so there has been some sort of a climate of Reform if not you know Progressive change I think that would be going too far but it's precise that unlikely reformer side of Marcus Jr I think that sets the tone for The Clash that we see between the two powerful dynasties but shortly before that let me just discuss foreign policy because I think the foreign policy of Marcus Jr has not been appreciated in its full substance can we go to the next slide so I think many people forget that a duterte himself by 2021 was already recalibrating his relationship with China earlier in the year He restored the visiting forces agreement with the Americans fully he openly thanked the Americans for their vaccine donations he had a very cordial meeting with uh defense secretary Lloyd Austin during his visit to Manila but towards the end of the year importantly in October during the aan China Summit duerta openly said he abhor China's bullying of the Philippines with respect to the witson reef Juan Philipp Reef disputes this is duter himself in his own words during China Asian Summit with shiin ping in the room so it is not true that duterte was true and true until 2022 pro-china and that suddenly Marcus comes in and he's Pro us I think that's a caricature is view that doesn't appreciate how our different leaders have been hedging so just to simplify this I'll keep this short you're free to read you know look at my lectures and writings on these issues uh extensively but In fairness to Marcus Jr early on he wanted to have a classic case of hedging or equ balancing meaning yes China is a headache for us in the South China Sea but we don't want the South China Sea disputes to be end all be all of our bilateral relationship yes the United States is our treaty Ally important Ally but we don't want to be over dependent on America so in Min sense Marcus Jr was trying to embody a kind of a more independent strategically autonomous stance and in fact WI a China he CH China as his first state visit destination ahead of Washington DC well not yet in Washington DC this have been official visits and ahead of Japan he also said that he wants a new golden era of bilateral relationship when he went met wangi early on in his term in office and the Chinese were extremely optimistic about their prospects can we go to the next slide so whatever Marcos is doing right now is not out of nowhere you know as as someone said it doesn't just it didn't just fall off from the kokonut tree right um uh Marcos has been responding to a set of factors first of all his visit to China was extremely fruitless the term I use is pledge trap I think a lot of friends in the opposition were worried about dead trap under China I said forget about that I don't think even any investment will come in for us to have any debt um so what we had was pledge dra empt pledges in exchange for geopolitical concessions um now in the case of uh Marcus Jr he didn't get any concessions from China in that front and then Biden Administration has proactively courted him uh when when he was in office visits by Kamala visit by top officials from the United States Biden having great relationship and then I think this is the LA this is the part which is very important this gradual Fallout also with the duas gave him a stronger impetus to take the right stance also in the west Philippines dis can we go to the next slide don't worry I'm going to um next slide please so this are this is essentially the three acts uh in my assessment that that set the tone for the eventual divorce that we saw between uh within the uni te you know and I think the very first act that really set the tone was du was Marcos rejecting the preference of s duterte for the defense secretary position and not to mention um also aroo not getting Speaker of the House position and the rest essentially is history can we just go to the next slide please um now having said that I don't think Marcus Jr is necessarily out of the woods yet on economic issues which have been the most urgent concern for the Filipino people inflation poverty elevation wage increases he's not doing very well he has a negative 71 net approval rating on inflation negative 34 on poverty elevation negative on both corruption and wage increases slightly positive only in terms of creating jobs thanks to robust economic growth s DTA remains as the most popular elected official based on the Paul stal survey and she has almost Universal support in mindo and close to Universal in visia so the VIS mean basis of duterte is still strong and last slide this is important I think that is why um there's no room for complacency for Marcus Jr ahead of next year's elections he still has majority support he got foreign policy broadly right I'll give him Way Beyond passing grade he has been an unlike reformer and I think deserves credit for that although of course nowhere close to Ideal um nevertheless next year's elections will be interesting because you're not goingon to have one you're not goingon to have two you're gonna have three opposition groups one is the genuine opposition or what I call the genuine opposition led by Ras Bako drno and U pangan and then you have the uh the Bayan Mauna uh late they promised to make it full so they did not join forces with liberal Center leftist forces they're going to go on their own but the third one is or you know essentially tactical opposition and these are the dues so for the first time we have the situation of three different oppositions and it remains how Marcos is goingon to deal with different opposition groups um obviously he's still pretending that there's some sort of unity with this dues uh both Sara I'm sorry both Lenny and RZA have rejected calls for an official Grand Coalition but some have suggested a modus vend whereby both will focus on attacking the rather than attacking each other and then the makabayan block of course have their own Dynamics and I think they'll focus more on issues where they'll stand apart from practically everyone else um you know in in the field so one way of looking at it is that the next ele I think the the government can do it this way they can try to paint themselves as team Philippines and try to the other side as team China I think the the duterte side will try to come in and present themselves as team Philippine Independence and then accuse the other side of being too Pro American and all so we're going to see I think for the first time in recent memory West Philippines and foreign policy issue becoming one of the not number one but top three at least issues that will uh Define upcoming elections nevertheless Marcus Jr has a number of wild calls there uh one is the ICC I was just in the ha uh earlier this month I did some of my own research I cannot say exactly what I was told by informed sources but it's not impossible that warrants of arrest by ICC will be issued um even possibly before uh the certificate of cand cand file for midterms that's going to raise its own issues not to mention investigations on farali Gentleman's Agreement confidential fund among others just the last slide I didn't I didn't add a while ago but I was just hoping to upload it so if in terms of uh policy recommendations and all I think we have to keep in mind that this s DTA versus Marcos kind of debate and all of that um all of this factional fightings is not good for the country whatever side you take this is not reflecting well and as someone who deals with investors hedge funds among others throughout the years um they see this as instability on uncertainty so I think it's very important for for the administration to settle this or or manage this this tension as much as possible so that we can make the Philippines more attractive to foreigners and at the same time he has to deal with this issue in the best way possible according to the rule of law because I don't think Marcus can focus on fundamental structural issues whether it's industrial policy whether it's regulatory capture whether it's making sure critical infrastructure um you know is functioning for our economy he cannot deal with this isues unless he gets this big polit right and that is why the upcoming election iting 2025 will be a referendum not only in Marcus and and duus but it'll be also referendum of the Philippines ability to fully actualize its potentials as a new Rising middle power and an Emerging Market on that not thank you very much and looking forward to the open Forum Sal thank you very much Mr hadarian very interesting insights we have been hearing so far and I see that we have around 114 participants joining us today uh we will actually be having an open Forum later on as Mr hearin mentioned so to all of our guests please feel free to drop any of your questions in the Q&A chat box for later so our next speaker will now be talking about environmental governance understanding the growing concern on water critical minerals and climate change adaptation he is the director of The lasal Institute of governance and a trustee program convenor and non-resident fellow at the Strat Bas ADR Institute ladies and gentlemen let us all welcome Dr Francisco Magno thank you Dana so uh I will present on environmental governance understanding the growing concern on way water critical minerals and climate change adaptation next slide so when we talk about environmental governance we are looking at the processes and institutions through which decisions about natural resources and Environmental Protection are made and implemented in the Philippines environmental governance is crucial due to the country's vulnerability to natural disasters its riched biod diversity and its Reliance on natural resources for economic growth this presentation would cover the three areas of concern Water Resources critical minerals and climate change adaptation next slide so how how is the state of water resources in the Philippines the Philippines is rich in Water Resources but faces significant challenges due to the uneven distribution of these resources across regions based on the Philippine water supply and sanitation master plan the country's water resources comprises of 421 rivers and 59 natural lakes generating a total surface water potential of 125,1 190 million cubic MERS per year when added to the groundwater potential of 20,200 million Cub m a year the overall Water Resources potential is even greater next slide now looking at the water uses the primary water use in the Philippines is in irrigation which it'ss up 80% of water consumption Municipal and domestic use 9.68% and Industrial use 8.14% other purposes 2% next slide we have to consider however that there are only 12 Water Resource regions in the country while we have 17 administrative regions so this means that multiple lgus often share common Water Resources so certain regions uh would be sharing what we call the Water Resource regions in terms of uh the uh the source of water for instance the central visas Water Resources region which holds only 2% of the Water Resources supports 7.4% of the national population similarly the southern talug region home to 30.3% of the population only as 5.3% of the Water Resources this disparity leads to water scarcity in densely populated areas heightening health and sanitation risks next slide now let me go to the key challenges uh let me cite a few of them because there are many challenges to the water sector first is watershed degradation over 130 critical water sheds in the country need immediate protection and Rehabilitation to minimize oil erosion and improve water yield 11 of the 18 major river basins have less than 20% for for cover as you know topographic uh in terms of its topography the Philippines is really a mountainous country uh based on the 18% slope uh more than 60% of our land area are Upland and yet the the forest uh cover is uh is only 20% water pollution 43% over 180 out of 42 one rivers are polluted mainly due to untreated domestic W sea wage and Industrial and agricultural waste in 2021 56% of water bodies classified for public water supply exceeded guideline values for FAL culfor population growth and urbanization under a business as usual scenario the country is likely to experience a high water or high degree of water shortage by 2014 T climate change affects the frequency and intensity of El Nino episodes next slide looking at the water service providers so there are different types classified according to water districts LG operated private and others including Community Based and cooperatives but there is also a categorization of water districts that are non-operational so you you can see in this table uh what do we mean by non-operational uh let let us look at the next slide first of all uh local water districts established under the 1973 provincial water utilities act are goc's authorized to install improve maintain and operate water supply and Distribution Systems 38% or 622 out of 100 or 1,617 n NCR cities and municipalities lack local water district coverage there is a gap in private investment in Lower Class lgus affecting water supply expansion now I mentioned in the previous slide uh it's because it's in the table that there are local water water districts that are non-operational and these are 39% of these local water districts are not operating due to lack of sufficient water supply incomplete water pipeline infrastructure and the absence of a constituted board of directors which means that there are local water districts uh that are uh existing in name but not really in substance next slide a key problem is uh the fact that there are so many agencies with water related functions over 30 agencies uh possess roles uh from regulation Management policymaking in uh water governance but there is no central body that oversees the full Water Resource cycle scattered and limited water supply and sanitation data hampers planning and monitoring weakening the sector so that is a a widespread problem in uh governance uh the the lack of data or if there is data the data uh uh available in many government agencies uh they they do not speak to each other there is no data interoperability lgus require better technical capacity for water supply and sanitation duties including irrigation water supply drainage uh flood control under the local government code next slide please so uh you have a picture here of uh the different government agencies with water related mandates next slide please so the policy strategies are in infrastructure development investing in modern water supply and distribution system so in the state of the nation address of the president he mentioned that there are two major irrigation projects the cabaruan solar powered pump irrigation project and uh haur River multi-purpose Dam project in Iloilo a second key strategy needed is to uh strengthen regulatory Frameworks enhancing enforcement of water quality standards and sustainable extraction policies and uh lastly promoting a holistic approach to Water Management that includes all stakeholders but this integrated Water Resource Management can also be pursued through a policy next slide in establishing a Department of Water Resources the establishment of a Department of Water Resources would effectively manage the growing demands for water resources and will be the agency responsible for the comprehensive and integrated identification and mapping of all Water Resources next slide please now let me go to the second uh key concern in environmental governance is critical minerals the Philippines is the world's fourth largest copper reserves fifth biggest nickel deposits and is also rich in Cobalt all of of which have important uses in Clean Energy Technologies from lithium batteries for electric vehicles to solar pel uh solar panels Min mineral requirements for Renewable Energy Technologies must be quad quadrupled by 2040 to reach the goals of the Paris agreement and the World Bank estimates a 500 increase 500% increase in the demand for transition minerals this is encouraged ing mineral rich countries like the Philippines where mining is relatively undeveloped and only accounts for 1% of gross domestic product next Slide the Philippine government is planning to pursue more government Le exploration focus on critical minerals such as nickel and chromium these activities are expected to minimize risk for investors while offering the necessary data to make investment decisions they can also help Revitalize the significant underdeveloped mining sector in the country it is also working to bring in investments into the domestic nickel processing sector to add more value to the sector Andrew mentioned a while ago the the Japan uh us Philippine uh trilateral agreement which includes renewable energy and Mining so uh there is one of these proposals is to enhance uh nickel uh production and processing actually in the Philippines because we export much of our nickel ore uh overseas so this can actually be part of a value chain uh linking Mining and the renewable energy sector next slide please so the uh the Philippine mining act provides for mining companies to allocate 1.5% of operating cost for the development of the mining community and the government also has an extractive industry transparency initiative next slide now my proposal is to align the sdmp which is uh the Social Development and Management Programs which forms part of the 1.5% of operating cost provided by mining companies uh aligning the SDM Peak uh with localized SGS can contribute to the attainment of better uh community development and uh this can be pursued through the use of accurate local data and the application of participatory planning and monitoring systems next slide please now in climate change adaptation uh the Philippines is highly vulnerable next slide and the key challenges are disaster risk management agricultural productivity and Coastal erosion next slide so so we have the climate change Act and the national disaster risk reduction management act next Slide the key strategies uh I'm down to my last two slides uh given the limited time uh policy strategies are in ecosystem based adaptation infrastructure resilience capacity building this is very important enhancing the ability of local communities and institutions to respond to climate change in the Sona of the president uh what he mention our flood control projects so very relevant especially now uh getting additional resources from the new climate Justice fund so this is very revealing that we are very active in this process but let us uh be real about absorptive capacity next slide I came across this Consolidated report by the commission on audit of the disas the use of the disaster risk reduction management funds as of December 20 2022 and if you can just look at this data it would show that uh especially the last three budget lines uh national government agencies goc's lgus uh this portion of the funds are not Ed so if you look at lgus uh 47 billion pesos are unuse on top national government agencies 11 billion pesos next slide in conclusion effective environmental governance is crucial for addressing the growing concerns related to Water Management critical minerals and climate change adaptation in the Philippines sustainable and integrated approaches robust regulatory Frameworks and active Community engagement are essential to ensure Environmental sustainability and resilience thank you very much thank you very much Dr Magno for those insights that you've shared on environmental governance and now for our fourth speaker for today we uh he will be looking into National Security and Foreign Affairs securing the nation National sovereignty in the west Philippine Sea he is a professor at the International Studies department at aasal University Manila and a trustee program convenor and nonresident fellow at the Strat based ADR Institute as well let us all welcome Dr Renato decastro uh good morning ladies and gentlemen again it's a great pleasure and honor to be invited to this event by the Strat Bas ADR Institute uh although of course I have preferred that it would be a face tof face event but of course circumstances has prevented us from having a more Dynamic face-to-face interaction so my presentation today if I could share my slide PowerPoint presentation would of course focus on the National Security Dimension and of course when we talk about the national uh issue of National Security as mentioned by the president and during his state of the nation address when he talks about of course the the issue regarding the territorial dispute or the West Philippines issue but more significantly I'll focus on its approach primarily because it's the first time that the pH the Philippine government has come out with what I you know what is considered by academics and analysts as what we call Grand strategy and this will be the focal point of my discussion looking into of course moving away from Simply reacting to China's expansion in the south chines in terms of a hard balancing policy to what is now called the comprehensive archeologic defense concept okay let me proceed right away to my presentation so as mentioned earlier by Richard when the early part of his term president Marcos did not really want to side with any of the great Powers who of course are engaged in a great competition uh his approach then as again as correctly pointed out by Richard uh he used the term uh balance equibalance I use the term balanced foreign policy the purpose of course is to engage China in an active economic cooperation but at the same time of course unlike the previous administration try to gain practical benefits from both the United States and China inde this could be considered as the quen essential equ balancing approach rather compared of course to the deter Administration which simply Focus primarily again I will agree with Richard although in the latter part of his term he realized that a pement amount you know uh did not enable him to get anything from China uh uh uh but during for the first four to five years of his term the the tur Administration simply relied on an appeasement policy so in the first state of the nation addressed president Marcus gave the impression that he actually want really a balanced approach where in of course the Philippines will engage China in a dynamic economic cooperation but of course also learning from the duerte administration that you could not simply drop the United States like a hot potato or China simply would take you for granted which president du former president tried to do in the early part of his firm so this close economic cooperation with China would be balanced by a dynamic security relations with the United States even before of course uh the election President uh at the candidate bong bong Marcos already indicated that he would not follow the path of the duerte administration in this first four years of basically trying to win the Philippines away from the United States so he in employing a balanced foreign policy president Marcos initially envisioned a division of labor of course in which Washington would remain as the Philippines close security Ally but at the same time Beijing is a significant should be a significant in uh provider of infrastructure investment and of course he was also expecting tourists hopefully tourists who will not work in the pogos that of course is currently supposed to be banned right now so president Mar uh president Marcos realized again based on the experience of the former president duterte closer economic relations with China would not moderate its aggressive behavior against of course units of the Armed Force of Philippines deployed in the west Philippines e South China Sea Richard mentioned of course what happened at Winston scha around uh February March 2021 of course during the time of the dir Administration you had already a standoff between the Chinese Maritime militia and the Philippine Navy and the Philippine Coast Guard so uh he allowed of course the Armed Force of the Philippines a free hand to hold military meetings with their American counterparts which led of course to a significant increase in joint us uh Philippine military exercise and substantial of course uh uh uh us rotational presence in the country so the marus initial approach to the South China issue of course required a delicate Balancing Act requiring of course the Philippines to walk a fine line between fostering greater security cooperation with the US in a way continuing what actually began during the latter part of the the turkey administration of revitalizing the alliance but at the same time he was of course uh hoping that he would be able to maintain China's Goodwill with an expectation the Chinese market would be open to Philippine products and of course you'll have Chinese Investments moving into the infrastructure uh program of the Marcos Administration however you note uh you know as we analyze the uh the slow development you know the developments in the country's foreign and defense policy uh you have of course was a major breakthrough happening in February 2023 when of course the Marcus Administration announced additional edas sites now from five to about 9 of course we have to remember what happened during the duerte administration the duerte administration slowed down the implementation of the enhanced defense cooperation agreement which was course signed in April 2014 during the uh aino Administration and of course everyone know even the Chinese were very much aware of this that the ation of the etka sites would provide US forces a strategic vantage point from which they could Mount rapid military operation interestingly not only in the South China Sea but more significantly of course over Taiwan so in a case the developments indicate that the Marcus Administration is not only looking at the West Philippine SE South China Sea issue as a que essential flasho that the Philippines faces right now but also looking at possibilities that might happen north of the lon straight and that is of course Taiwan which is of course a target of Chinese irredentist policy along of course with this recommitment to fund the third Horizon of the Armed Force of the Philippines modernization program the Marcus Administration decision to increase the number of edites Mark of course the return the Philippine policy of hard balancing challenging China's uh Maritime expansion in the South China had on so interestingly this is similar to the policy of the president Benigno Akino III which of course adopted a strategy of hard balancing that challenge China but of course in my discussion later on we will see that the uh uh the Marcus Administration policy is more vigorous there's also more willingness to uh put its money where his mouth is and of course the fact that it's now being uh that challenge is in a form of a comprehensive uh systematic and long-term Grand strategy which will be of course the focal point of my discussion I'll just bre through the initial hard balancing approach going back to what Richard discussed the Marcus Administration tried to affect a balanced foreign policy uh between the US Mark of course by uh efforts to promote economic cooperation with China when President Marcus of course met president C jingping in November 2022 on the side of the assian summit he again emphasized with President C jingping the West Philippine SE South China Sea issue is not the sum of Philippine China relation but at the same time of course earlier when he met President Joe Biden of course in September on the side of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York already indicated that of course there is a need really to enhance Philippine uh us uh security relations and of course this is based on again we go back to the policy of his late father uh even during the time of the height of the Cold War uh when of course the Philippines was negotiating with a B you know with the United States in terms of renewing or amending the military basis agreement of 1947 but at the same time making inroads in establishing diplomatic relations with China and the Soviet Union then there was an effort again to be the balancer to basically position the Philippines in the middle of course the Philip and this is based on a geographic reality the Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country that of course can host significant American forward deployed forces and basically of course this is seen as a leverage to try to mod uh to manage or in a in a in a way also uh manage and try of course uh what just turn for this a modify Chinese aggressive behavior or Chinese expansionist behavior in the west philippin SE and also more significantly not only in the west Philippines South China se but also Visa Taiwan but of course Chinese expansionism cive action and possibly what transpired when President Marcos visited Beijing in January 2023 basically made president Marcos realize that there's simply no point in trying to continue the appeasement policy of the detered administration simply because from the perspective of China once we control your pocket in terms of your economic relations we would have to control your entire soul and body so Chinese goal is not simply to cut a deal China's purpose is simply a matter of subjugation so this basically uh compelled president Marcos to uh more or less U modifies his balanc approach and of course adopted a policy of Shifting let me just Breeze through the policy of hard balancing so uh the course the decision to continue the AP modernization program revitalizing the Philippine us Alliance and of course forcing security engagement of course with other us allies I'll just of course this is based on the reality that with its limited Military capabilities the Philippines has no choice but to leverage its Alliance and security partnership with the Us and other American Allies to provide uh deterence against of course external infen in the form of Chinese Maritime expansion in the West South China Sea West Philippines South chin sea let me just pass through this portion where we talk about the evolution rather let me go straight to what is the comprehensive archip ologic defense concept is all about so in a nutshell we'll go through what is cadsi all about although interestingly the Department of National Defense has not really come out with a comprehensive document on what is katsi all about uh my uh understanding of cadsi is based of course on the VAR speeches delivered by secretary gibot choro so in a way this is a new defense concept aims to project the country's military power to the country's 200 nautical miles excl of economic zone this is of course a break from the going back of course in the 1930s when the Philippines was still a territory of the United States a break from the original policy of Simply focusing on the defense of the island specifically lison but rather what we call a forward projection of the military Philippine military capability into its exclusive economic zone and of course this is based CI is based on the fact that the Philippines as an archeologic country has limited land mass and of course it's population increasing there's a need to basically tap the resources in its Maritime domain but of course the key Challenge on manila's ability to tap those resources the fact that China's expansive claim the 10 dash line had of course prevented the Philippines from you know uh even serving and accessing 85% of its exclusive economic zone in the west Philippines South China Sea let me just bre through this and so so ki's goal is a medium-term goal is to project the Armed Force of Philippines capability of course to the country's exclusive economic zone and adopt a policy of what you call developing strategic depth rather than of course a policy of exchanging territory in uh for time rather it's more of course uh based on a more proactive strategic Vision developing strategic depth to enhance the defense of the entire archipelagic territory meaning not only the but of course the internal Waters the archipelagic waters and the exclusive economic zone of course Katy requires the arm Force the Philippines to develop capabilities for awareness access control of its Maritime territory including of course Joint Forces to able to neutralize a k uh uh approach kinetic and not kinetic threats uh requires scoty to develop Maritime domain awareness system and of course developing the Armed Forces of the Philippines Maritime and air defense capabilities so of course it's a major undertaking to develop the country's overall resources and capabilities in assuming a comprehensive archaological difference approach uh the cadsi also emphasized the need for the Philippines to leverage on its Alliance and other security Partners like Japan Australia South Korea and even India the long-term goal of Katy is of course to guarantee unimpeded peaceful exploration and resources in the exclusive economic zone this move of course are are directed at strengthening the Philippines diplomatic strategic forsure Visa Chinese Maritime expansion but of course in the long run this inferred a comprehensive defiant and long-term Grant strategy against Chinese Maritime expansion in the west philippin SE now let me just go into my conclusion so what are the key points when we talk about Ki what does Ki basically provides in terms of a grand strategy that probably would be the legacy of the Marcus Administration hoping for a fact that we might not have another Rodrigo duterte in the future uh number one of course an emphasis on the geographic fact that the Philippines is an archeologic country whose land mass is limited while the nation is course is increasing and generating the need for resources uh there's of course also clear understanding that China's Maritime expansion constitute a clear and present danger to Philippine national security uh there's also recognition that the policy uh policy should be geared at maintaining the status in the west Philippines SE South China Sea to basically prevent China from affecting its mass expansive expansion into the West philippin sea South China Sea ensuring that the South China Sea remains a sea common to all of course also a clear acknowledgement of the urgency urgency of course I'm sorry of Shifting the focus of the Philippine military away from internal security territorial defense is specifically developing the capabilities for archeologic defense also a recognition urgency of fostering alliance with the US of course this policy has an implication as a cause I have noticed among my Asian colleagues that several of our Asian partners are not very happy with what they perceive as a very confrontational approach Visa China so I have to take into account this what I would call the collateral consequences of this policy among the Southeast Asian countries the Philippines is the only country considering China's Naval expansion in the South China Sea as an equisential threat to it National Security second of course the Philippine implementation of a grand strategy set it apart from the other asan countries almost all probably with a slight exception of Vietnam that adopts a cost-free diplomatic strategy as leveraging hedging and compensating all aim of course as maintaining China's Goodwill at the same time avoiding costly armed conflict in the face of Chinese Maritime expansion of course in the case of the Philippines the Philippines have basically adopted Grant strategies uh based of course on balancing appeasement and of course right now CI uh just some of the things that I expect to be happening number one of course the uh the uh military organization is already preparing the groundwork for a comprehensive archeologic defense concept there'll be an A transformation of the Armed Force of the Philippines from army Centric Armed Forces to a tri service military capable of establishing credible deterrence and the terorist fails of course the AAP right now is also considering the possibility of you know K uh confronting kinetic threats emanating of course from the external environment and of course importance of the alliances so I think this is my last slide thank you very much for your attention and I look forward to a very interesting discussion during the Q&A all right thank you so much Dr dcastro for uh sharing your insights on this matter and so our final speaker for today will be tackling impacts on public opinion threats of disinformation and Chinese influence she is a professor at the department of political science at atano de Manila University let us all welcome Dr Alma Salvador M hi Dana thank you so much for the invitation and I'm happy to be here together with colleagues um uh who are uh experts in the field of uh National Security uh and non-traditional security I'm here to uh make a presentation on the impacts on public opinion uh threats of disinformation and Chinese influence um public opinion and disinformation seem to be the softer side of the uh foreign policy issue of West Philippine Sea conflict that we have with China but um in the context of the midterm uh elections and the 2028 presidential elections we will see the um uh essential uh role and influential role of information in shaping public opinion and if um um the if influence is U fallen into the wrong hands then uh we we might be according to um uh my colleague um uh Ren Ren de Castro we might hopefully not fall into another trap of having an a second deter as Philippine president so uh this is basically focused on what how we are to respond to China's illegal coercive aggressive and deceptive actions in the west philippin sea so that is the focus of this presentation next slide please um these are the questions that I seek to uh uh provide some answers to number one is what are the sources of thisinformation and propaganda narratives in the west Philippine Sea it's important for us to know what the sources are and to take them uh seriously as part of uh China's Grand strategic narratives and if we are to calibrate our foreign policy response then uh these narratives are um interesting uh and and and and strategic uh points of reference as decision makers it's important for us to um uh find out how these propaganda and disinformation narratives of China uh shape public opinion and ultimately how do they influence the course of bilateral relations we have with China it's been repeatedly um articulated um um that the our geopolitical relations with China are are uh do not constitute the sum total of our relations with China but in the course of my presentation we will see how the upended um tension that we've that we have with China right now is slowly um contradicting that uh uh that argument and that assertion uh fourth point is how do how does the Philippine government together with title actors uh respond to the disinformation challenge uh and or challenges that are being presented uh by China and uh how do these increased security challenges uh shape electoral politics and agenda for the midterms and in 2028 next slide please okay it's raining hard here okay um so um my point of reference is the June 17 2020 for a union show collision and this is um as a um this specific incident of very dangerous encounters sort of sets the tone for Next Level gry Zone tactics and have in fact appended the Battle of narratives between Philippines and uh uh and China um there are uh points of contention narratives wise one of the debates for instance because this has happened um a union sh Collision basically resulting in the boarding of uh of um by a Chinese uh Maritime uh actor of Philippine Vessel uh have actually led to a a serious injury on the part of a naal officer so the point of contention here is at least discursively is will that constitute an armed attack um suff to invoke uh the mutual defense treat or is it just some kind of misunderstanding uh of course um part of the observation here is to what extent is the threshold being the threshold of um the the danger of invoking the mdp being lowered by by China as if it were testing the limits of the mutual defense treaty is another point of concern among our decision makers um I'd also like to uh raise one of the observation by uh made by a colleague Chester cabalza who's President and founder of um IDE see that uh the coition as well has sort of also from a psychological Vantage Point of View cast out on the seeming vagueness of the US Alliance commitment now it's also interesting to look at the extent to which our military has refrained uh the gry Zone tactics that they are trying to manage right now because that is the current set of Affairs uh in the west Philippines Sea that uh The Gray Zone tactics are now being reframed as illegal coercive aggressive and deceptive which in effect sort of blurs the line in fact removes the ambiguity between coercion short of War coercive short of War tactics and armed attack so the military refrain on the part of uh the Armed Forces of the Philippines is quite significant posturing um because um it does brings to it does bring it does highlight the way by which the milit military and the Philippine government is sort of posturing or reposturing in in order to uh present a more re-calibrated response to the West Philippine Sea conflict um it's also important to note that the D in the iag OR deceptive uh operations underline the hard power aspect of China's actions and it is important for us to Traverse this the Nexus between the hard and soft power aspects of China's actions next slide please um first on the propaganda narratives in the context of the IAD or the illegal coercive and deceptive actions of China um what why why this is being presented before you is for us to look into to what extent by which we need a more recalibrated response uh foreign policy wise in West Philippines see and the need for us to move our counter narratives or the need for us to construct counter narratives in order to address this propaganda narratives of China um I highlight the elements of the 2016 State Council uh of China's uh uh pronouncements in which um um two elements come as very significant number one is the sustained escalation of uh or the assertion of the sustain escalation of China SE control measures so um the statement in that in the 2016 pronouncement says that China will continue to do what it's necessary to firmly Safeguard its sovereignty and this is reiterated in 2024 I would like to think and I would like to argue that our foreign policy makers specifically in the defense security and diplomacy apparatus take this seriously for a more recalibrated foreign policy response so this is something that will be that will be the state of things to come um uh and this should be able to shape our course of action uh in the west Philippine Sea um the this specific pronouncement do also present some alternate facts on Scarboro which specifically notes that if we H if we look at the Treaty of Paris and the Philippine national mapping and Source information Authority uh um according to the statement Spar Bol is outside the Philippine territory so this is something that is being reproduced as part of uh the Chinese propaganda narratives and it's important for us to uh uh formulate and construct and and uh propagate a counternarrative uh that would complement for instance the role of our Brokers at the moment Justice scarpio and J Baka who are and who are um consistently looking into how they uh argue from a perspective of boundaries of the country um another element is the presentation of the alternate facts on a union Shaw so the gentleman's agreement that is being presented in 2024 uh is further uh uh Hearts back from this 2016 pronouncement or statement in which uh China uh emphasizes that there was indeed uh broken commitment broken promise to tow away the facility at aun Shaw and that was basically undertaken by our political Elites at the uh defense um State and Office of the President offices um and and of course the latest uh agreement the latest agreement narrative on the part of China uh um uh shows uh domestic divisions that is very dangerous to our social cohesion so um we've looked into the propaganda narratives as sources of this uh uh this information that we need to take into consideration if we are to come up with a more recalibrating foreign policy response next slide please um now the D as I have earlier said um is a part of the military reframe of the gry Zone tactics of China and it signifies the militaries and and the civilian or Coast Guard's recognition of the role of China Shar power that which under underpins the South China Sea actions uh I'm sorry a China's actions in the west philippin sea all of these put into perspective uh uh has contributed to a very low public trust rating on China in which in the latest survey 2024 76% of the respondents considered China as the country's greatest threat the impact of which is the subject of my discussion which is the securitization of our bilateral and People to People relations next slide please now what we mean by the securitization of our other relations with China so there are important aspects to it or that sort of questions or puts into um uh or a recasting of our original standpoint that geopolitics is not the sum total of our relations with China because clearly the interplay between China's use of soft or disinformation narratives or power uh with its uh CER hard power uh um securitizes or renders us to securitize our uh other relations with China and you see this in the following instances where the brri projects in Cagayan uh is being securitized the interconnection between for instance dto and safe Philippines project and Telecommunications raising significant National concerns the linkage between Pogo and Alice R and the network of human trafficking um links and participation of China um the securitization of our P2P or peop to people relations in view of our criticism or observation of the influx of Chinese students in Cagayan and the China tagging of chinat trained military personnel I've read one of the Articles of Richard hadarian in which he writes about the uh ongoing mcarthism that seems to be present with uh uh allegations of um um of our um uh uh officials in governments with sleeping with the reds or under the bed Reds under the bed um next slide please next slide please um therefore I propose some of the uh points here um as part of our recalibrated response and as part of force uh of the uh uh requirements of uh the context and agenda setting for the midterm and the 2028 elections seriously we need to seriously take into consideration that the escalation pathway uh that uh is presented before us in view of the convening of the BCM or the bilateral consultative mechanism I was listening to a secretary former secretary Ronald gas in one of the radio station in which he argues that there is is there in she poses the question is there a need for the Philippines to deescalate um I don't think that's very helpful rhetoric it's important for us to put forward the importance of a hotline a whole society's approach to address this information because thisinformation cuts through our uh society as I've seen as we've seen with the securitization of our bilateral relations with with China we need to be able to uh Rec calibrate our response by focusing on our internal security challenges uh in the realm of non-traditional security threats and in view of China's use of sharp power we need also to take steps to Des securitize our P2P relations with China uh we also uh uh continue uh towards the direction of strengthening our institutions so that we could better manage non-traditional security risk but more importantly cyber security risk and and in the context of the West Philippine Sea uh issue Maritime security we need to be able to work with our partners more increase our interoperability so we can leverage our strategic Partnerships with our with like-minded States and in that note I end my presentation thank you very much thank you very much Dr Alma um I hope you and your family are staying safe uh amidst all the strong rains um well at this point we we will now proceed to our open Forum so I would like to encourage us our speakers who are still with us in this call to please open your cameras if it is possible so Dr Kiko Magno uh Dr Rat decastro uh Dr Alma Salvador and if Mr Richard hi Darian is still with us in this call uh so to moderate this discussion uh let us all welcome Miss Joyce elas Reyes uh co-convenor of democracy watch Philippines and Deputy ex exective director of Bas ADR Institute all right hello good morning everyone hope you're all um saying safe and dry I'm not sure if you can hear the rains in the in the background I I could uh I could hear the Reigns uh during Dr Al's presentation so we hope everyone safe even our participants hope you're all um staying safe and dry today so uh to proceed to our um open Forum uh I think Richard I was just uh messaging with Richard he said that he will just find a quiet space in the airport and we'll be back to join us again in the open Forum in a bit um Dr Rene you want to answer the question in the Q&A is that why you're no I want to I have a burning question addressed to Andrew okay sir unfortunately Dr uh sir Andrew masan had to leave to to a previous appointment so another appointment but um is this economic related it's an economic yeah okay okay okay um actually I do have several economic related questions as well for uh sir Andrew migan but maybe um I'm not sure Dr will you be able to answer some questions um politics economics related are okay can you hear me sir Doo Oh yeah yeah see okay um perhaps before we proceed to the questions asked by our participants I I have a couple of questions first that I would like to ask our um speakers for today especially in reference to the uh state of the nation address delivered by our president just the other day so my first question is actually a tupong question for everyone I think Richard is already here Richard can you hear us yes yes I'm listening yeah okay so I have my question for everyone is um what do you think considering the last two years of the Marcus Jr Administration and looking into um this year until the 2025 elections what do you think are the biggest or most important challenges or is issues in the country today and uh the second quick follow-up question to that would be how big of a role will these issues play in the 2025 midterm elections like for example do you think these will be ele considered as election issues will people vote for candidates based on these issues what do you think maybe we can start with um doc uh doc Rene would you like to answer the question first uh based on the speech delivered by the president I think the primary concern will still be economic issues basic issues that of course affect the ordinary Filipinos like for example uh at the onset of his speech he uh focused on agriculture uh and of course also link with infrastructure education uh Power Generation so I think the main issue will still be uh basic that is of course uh something that is linked with of course the uh the well and Welfare of or ordinary Filipinos but of course again uh we might not be interested in security or Foreign Affairs issue but once of course it happens it will definitely affect us so at this point in time based of course on the uh what I would call the popular clamor and what basically the nation demands it will be primarily economic and primarily of course I would emphasize the need to manage inflation which of course easier said than done I'm not an economist so I cannot tackle this issue uh I hope Andrew is still here and he'll be the best person to address this issue this Burning issue that is course economic and the issue that I would like to ask Andrew is of course what will be the economic impact of President Marcus decision to shut down all the pogos here in the Philippines that's my question as well actually for for Andre but unfortunately he won't be able to join us anymore um Dr Kiko would you like to also answer the question please what do you think is are the biggest or most important challenges or issues in the country um La in the last two years and perhaps even until next year okay uh the the key issues are are are fairly the same uh it's about uh inflation uh jobs uh and and so uh my discussion focus on environmental uh resources and uh water resources are connected to uh agricultural production especially because our agriculture production relies a lot on on uh rainfed and water uh but uh what we need is the investments in water infrastructure and also to uh strengthen water governance Arrangements but unfortunately that was not uh discussed by the president uh during Sona what they discussed were uh two infrastructure uh irrigation infrastructure projects uh but just the same that is linked to uh agricultural uh agricultural production so I I think that those are key issues that are very much uh important uh given that it has been identified as uh key concerns of the uh of our people uh if you look at the uh the survey of false Asia uh concern for the environment is is usually below right uh below 10% uh but uh it's all all because uh uh the the way people uh check the or tick the the pro their concerns is is basically it's not in an integrated fashion but if we if we look together the importance of uh of natural and environmental resources then it becomes very significant uh especially uh climate change and uh disaster preparedness uh even if we we have good production and then you have the disasters then uh we have to really invest on disaster resilience so yeah what is important is to have a very integrative approach uh I was not able to explain the last slide uh very much but uh that last slide I presented was the audit uh Financial audit made by by the commission on audit regarding uh the use of uh disaster risk reduction and preparedness funds and management funds it and it indicates that we have funds but we are not using it uh it's all because of the lack of capacity I I would say that uh we have to bring in technology we have to bring in knowledge Partnerships in really strengthening uh climate in disaster resilience and I think uh uh the the politicians running for election should should have this uh frame of mind of integrating it as part of uh I always argue for the sustainable development goals no integrating sdgs but it's not very much in the awareness of our people and it's not even part of very much of policy discourse but I I think the connection there is with the Philippine development plan so if we connect all these things together I I think uh we we should have a better appreciation of the type of uh environmental challenges that we are facing and how it is connected to our economic uh sustainability yes that's right uh doc Kik that is very important it's very relevant especially now whenever we get rains as heavy as uh what we're having now the flooding the amount of Destruction they cause to our agricultural products that's very um significant that is usually a big problem say just one more thing Joyce because okay okay what you mentioned about the floods and uh that was actually mentioned by the president and flood control projects we have more than 5,000 flood control projects so I think this is the we are now being tested by typhoon Karina and uh it's a very good test because I think typhoon Karina is uh has been with us for the past several days and uh we have to monitor the uh effectiveness of this flood control projects okay thank you sir uh doo may we ask Richard to repeat my question Richard M uh maybe you can answer also what do you think are the biggest or most important challenges or issues in the country in the last two years and perhaps even until next year and how big of a role will these issues play in the 2025 midterm elections like do you think these will be considered as election issues will these issues affect how people vote for their candidates well I mean first of all if you look at the pulse Asia survey uh over the past decade or so consistent inflation economic issues were always uh you know top priority for voters tan is why did some Administration Fair better uh most especially during the duerta administration when we had the covid pandemic when the economy was doing really bad when there was contraction a lot of joblessness and D was was still having 80 90% approval rating I think the better answer to that would be um first of all expectation management and then at the same time perspective so for instance the DTA Administration did a very good job of I'm talking about politics and PR good job of putting things into perspective so whenever people will complain about uh recession or they'll say Well it's worse in other countries or you know so I think uh it's really important that Administration have an effective Comm communication strategy whereby they make people appreciate the glass half full rather than the glass half empty I think Andrew did a good job of showing to us where we're lacking where we have to improve I think this Administration still has some job to do because you know they won the elections with poetry with all that mahara Golden Age Era blah blah blah but now that you're in power you cannot still continue to do the same poetry you have to govern by pros and I think the pros of this Administration has been quite weak because on one hand it's not very good in promoting what it has achieved all of these infrastructure projects all of this economic growth fastest in the region so it's not providing perspective and then the other problem is that Marcus Jr also set himself up for disappointment in a sense that he promised to make uh you know staple food like rice 20 pesos per kilo and where are we today 60 pesos 70 pesos even more so I think these were the mistakes that were done things that got him the victory in in 2022 are now coming back to hunt him because he has not made the adjustment from poety to pros and the ability to put things into perspective in fact my recommendation would be if I were to you know advise this Administration obviously I'm still independent but my point is go on the offensive for instance uh when it comes to economic challenges you can say we would love to help more people we would love to provide more subsidy but guess what duterte was so uh catastrophic in his management of pandemic that he left us with so much debt and that curtails our ability to provide subsidized rights among others why rice situation so bad he could blame the Rice tification law during the duterte era so I think you know I think Marcus has done a good job on the west Philippines front on the Pogo issue uh but I think on the domestic economy issue he has to provide the proper perspective so that people can appreciate what it's doing and for instance the easiest thing for this Administration to do is you know inflation is bad in the Philippines but my goodness it's 70 80% in turquia it's 100% in Argentina so I think that's where the Administration has been weak um it is not providing the right right kind of perspective and Pros to make its case and that's why it's getting all of the blame and one reason why S3 is doing very well in terms of her approval rating is precisely because she's not part of the administration in fact her numbers went up when she she got out of the administration effectively resigning her cabinet position and she was never in a position of economic management so so so that's that's where you see whar is doing very well aside from her visman base is also her dissociation for the administration so I find this very ironic because everyone thought if there's going to be one area where Marcus are going to be strong is public relations but I think they have not done a very good job of the pros in terms of their economic management and that's why they're paying the price okay thank you Richard since we're talking about grow and narratives I would like to address the next question to Dr Alma and to Dr Rene I would like to connect this to the West Philippine issue um in terms of narratives because the most applauded part of the SAA was when the president tackled the West philippin se he delivered really strong words he said West Philippines or the West philippin is not just a figment of our imagination it is ours and then he thanked the Armed Forces of the Philippines say uh and the Philippine Coast Guard and even the Fisher folks who served as frontliners in facing China's aggressive actions even to the point of of I don't know if you heard that his voice even quivered while he was thanking um the Fisher folks and our military men and the coast guard for their VIs vigilance and sacrifice and he got another standing of vision for that so to Dr Elma and to Dr Rene maybe even Richard can also answer this one of the disinformation narratives being propagated about the West Philippine Sea is that only a small percentage of Filipinos are concerned about what's happening in that side of our country that is one of their narratives but after seeing how our government leaders and representatives reacted in thisa yesterday with a standing ovasion the long Applause um what does that tell you about this issue and how important do you think is the West Philippine C the West Philippine issue going to be uh West Philippines C issue going to be especially in light of the 2025 elections maybe Dr Elma you can answer first okay um again I was listening to a radio station and then uh former secretary um uh Lamas said that for the next elections uh foreign policy would be a highly emotionally charged issue and then and uh we're also looking at for instance that the foreign policy has been the source of the loudest Applause and standing ovasion in uh um uh ferdin Marcus Jr's state of the nation address but if you ask me I certainly do not think that foreign policy will be a um a key issue uh that would make or break a presidential candidate we know for a fact that in the last elections bong bong marus uh did not at all participate in any of the debates and therefore his foreign policy stance came into being the moment he became president so it wasn't basic I don't think it would be um uh would occupy a predominant place in the uh public opinion and choices of our larger electric what will play an important issue is if candidates transform uh or link the um foreign policy uh and National Security concerns that envelopes the West Philippine Sea conflict or issue into gut level issues um because of course what we know is the uh National Security uh lies on the same Continuum as non-traditional security so the underpinnings of the West Philippines C uh issue that we confront with China includes um food security energy security uh water security which is hardly discussed in the Sona according to uh the k um K Magna here uh so and then of course uh increasing the cyber security risk so if our candidates both at the national and at the subnational levels are able to convert the hard security issue that is at the uh at the center of our discussion in West Philippines see into into gut level concerns of food energy cyber security not necessarily gut level but increasingly dominating the uh the basic needs of our of our citizens then I think this will in a way be the way by which foreign policy would play uh or foreign policy narratives would occupy by the preferences of our electorate in the in during the forthcoming elections okay thank you Dr Dr reene would you like to answer the question as well yes I I also was watching the uh the speech of the president in fact I was waiting for that portion where of course he would discuss National Security West Philippines issue of course it was discussed at the almost at the end probably uh just before he mentioned Pogo he mentioned of course and of course it touched two very important uh in a way triggering two very important uh elements there number one of course it's patriotism importance of territory of course also the element of nationalism the fact that the Philippines is now confronted by a great power that is course bent on expansion so it touch Bas is a very emotional issue and but I will agree with uh Alma it has to basically uh transcend this issue from being simply a case of something would trigger patriotism and nationalism into something longterm and to link it with other issues like number one the West Philippines issue has to do with economic security it has to do with uh of course when we talk about the comprehensive archeologic defense concept which has to do with uh accepting the fact that this will be a long-term security Challenge and of course this was raised by the president when he said that this issue is not only for this generation it's future or for future generations of Filipino that's why we have to to make a s so in a way this would require of course a comprehensive long-term strategy that will have to be linked number one with economic security going back to what Andrew mentioned it's very important that we link it we generate a sense of urgency National urgency that of course we are confronted with a long-term threat we have to put our house into order you know if you look at the development example of countries like Taiwan South Korea even Japan those countries develop because they develop under the shadow of a threap you know during the Cold War this is something that basically would entail a long-term strategy not only in terms of actual security strategy but also in terms of the narrative uh but then of course when it comes to the issue of poit I agree with Elma that this might not a normal situation this might foreign policy might not be a case of an issue during election but given the division between the duterte and the Marcus this might be an issue this may be a defining moment on basically how the marcoses would try to basically unravel the hold of the DTE linking of course the DTE and of course whoever would be link with3 with what we call the pro-china group in the Philippines and of course uh the administration basically presenting the Nationalist and the Patriotic narrative basic what we call the pro-chinese narrative or the appeasement Narrative of the former Administration let's see you know a lot of things might happen during this election and some people are already setting the stage you have some uh NGO saying these are the people who are pro Pogo and happy to be also Pro China uh basically making the people aware that when it comes to the election they have to make the right choices we cannot as I mentioned earlier we cannot afford another duer type uh Senator or even of course president in 2028 okay thank you Dr uh Rene um just one more question from my end before I ask the questions of our um participants and I would like to Justice to uh Richard and Doc Alma again and maybe to DRC Ren because this is about Pogo you have been mentioning about Pogo um several minutes ago another applauded moment during the sauna was when the president announced that all pogos are going to be banned or are banned uh effective during sauna day he said that he heard the loud cries of the Filipino people against pogos that's how he made the decision that's why he made the decision and he said that Gra abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop so my question is what do you think of this Proclamation how important is this issue going to be in light of the 2025 elections and perhaps how detrimental really is the presence of poos here in our country maybe Richard would you like to start yeah going back again to the narrative I mean obviously if you ask me remember the question is what are the most urgent issues so I think nowhere on Earth can you imagine that people will identify a foreign policy issue as a most urgent issue especially when you're in the midst of cost of living crisis and vast majority of population is under poverty line or close to poverty line so I think where the disinformation comes in is to say only few people care about West Philippines C that is absolutely not true right so if you look at the surveys super majority of philippinos want us to take a top St and then every time there's a news of massive bullying from China the amount of popular atten ion and anger at China is just beyond anything that you know all of these pro-china people are are trying to appreciate so I think we have to be very clear that yes it's not one of the most urgent issues but it is POL it is emotionally charged and if you speaking of linkage if you embedded or nested in a bigger narrative about corruption crime treason when you put it in that context I think the West Philippines issue can be a more politically um potent uh point not only the upcoming elections but also for the administration so if you look at the highlights of his speeches it was Pogo it has to do with China and we know that when it comes to pogos this is the main Legacy of the former Administration dues presidency right um and then West Philippines say again this is another Point of Departure so I think the the challenge or rather the opportunity for democrac administration is how to Nest the West Philippines issue also in the in the Pogo issue I.E crime criminality fake Mayors Espionage other sorts of National Security threats and then of course also add the element of Economic Security food security so West filipiny alone as a foreign policy issue may not be a top priority but if you Nest it in a package narrative that puts all of those elements together it makes it more resonating with people and more importantly it makes it more politically potent heading into into the elections next year okay thank you Richard Dr Elma um how you mentioned Pogo in your presentation how detrimental is the presence of pogos here in the country especially as a threat to our democracy and National Security um I I I agree very much with Richard um so nesting is important so um and and and as far as nesting is concerned um I think it's I have to go back to the point where we have to the West philippin sea issues and its Associated concerns on our domestic institutions and I think this is also the same kind of Direction with some of our colleagues and uh former military colleagues who's now in the at school of government Admiral Romel om keeps on saying in a lot of his presentations that perhaps we need to look beyond the West Philippine SE uh and uh look at for instance the notion of and and and perhaps we also even have to look beyond the idea of uh foreign inter interference so I think by focusing too much on foreign interference or Chinese influence operations then uh there's a tendency for our decision makers to have a scapegoat so in the context of uh the pros I think the real question here is our institutional capacity to regulate whatever comes into our country especially their uh foreign investments we need to be able to regulate gambling for instance online gambling so that they do not mutate to include uh scam centers for instance that are hubs for human trafficking because we've had the Pogo since 2013 uh but then over time they the in influx of the scam related uh uh online centers um uh uh has happened in view of the uh weak institutions that we have uh in terms of our immigration capacity for instance our institutions to uh to Grant licenses to these uh to these uh to these bodies uh so I I think we need to go back to these real concerns and not simply uh turn to the Notions of uh Chinese influence operatives as a scapegoat so that uh in in in in in crafting our our our decisions and our policies okay thanks Dr Rene would you like to add on that why how detrimental is the presence of pogos here in the country sir well I'll go beyond the issue of prime or social issues related I'll go to the issue basically of national identity if you go to areas where you have pogos and the residents of the Chinese workers there and their shops they create an enclave within Philippine Society you just go to a restaurant that of course Chinese restaurant that caters to those working with pogos or supermarkets you enter into a totally different world you cannot read read the menu the products are totally different so it generates what I call a national identity crisis not also in terms also of what I call Criminal Justice System you have certain areas for example in pasai where the police could not enter because that's basically an enclave or even the Chinese government government of course again this is a less seen issue the issue of pogo is also an irritant in terms of Philippine China diplomatic relation although you have allegations of the fact that the Pogo work hand inand with key members of the Communist Party of China of course the uh the Chinese government view is that it's causing triggering a social problem in in China in terms of the gambling because gambling is not allowed in China but we basically allow uh those pogos to operate here and of course conduct their illegal legal activity operating from here into China so I look at it in terms of two issues number one an issue in terms of uh national identity issue and of course also an issue despite our problems with China going back to you know the rhetoric the Mantra of many of our leaders the West philippin C issue is not the sum total of Philippine China relation again uh you know when I'm I watch interview the PO I said this might be something good in terms of Philippine China relation this removes a major in our relationship with China okay thank you very much Dr Rene um I'll now go to the question sent we have uh several questions here from our participants and just to connect to the Pogo discussion we have a question from Sam belan she said um there are concerns that the Banning of pogos will just lead uh to these facilities to go further underground or simply Rebrand themselves as another variation of Internet gaming licenses I've been seeing this online as well which may make the tracking of illicit activities associated with pogos even more difficult what can the Marcus government do to further ensure that pogos will truly remain prohibited in the country and curb these activities including the acquisition of falsified documents by Chinese Nationals who would like to address the question uh maybe Richard do you have a an answer or Dr Alma or Dr Rene Jo may I def defer to Richard or Renee first for that question once again well I mean first of all I think the the president said we're going to ban it but how is he going to operationalize that obviously is another issue that is more Technical and it's up to bi and others of course there's a threat I mean the also of course again if you look at the economic contribution of pogus is like what 0.00001% of our GDP that's the whole nation but obviously it's going to be an issue in some CBD areas so it may affect real estate uh sector in certain areas that's why some people said you have to sequence it um there are also people who rightly warned that after the Alice go issue the fake mayor of bamban issue came out that this actually uh provided some sort of timing and essentially she was a distraction from the more high value targets who all went into hiding into you know essentially their strategic depth across the Philippines and Beyond uh so I think we have to first of all say that it is correct that by principle the president said B Pogo but we have to be I think realistic that when it comes to operationalization this is not going to be an easy thing and perhaps the facto it's going to be quence and and compartmentalize in reality and and therefore I think the the the Pogo issue we really have to have a long-term solution to these issues because I think it also reflects more fundamental problems so for instance how come we have a lot of pogos and how come this pogus easily get involved in criminal activities and how come people who are involved in pogus end up as Mayors well that's because we have problems perhaps with how birth certificates are processed we have problems with how easily passports are acquired by certain people and that has implication for the Integrity of our documents so I would also worry about our ofws for instance if if if if it looks like it's so easy that anyone can get a filipp in the passport that has Grave implications so I'm not saying it was easy but I think that was just a first step in the Journey of a thousand miles if I were to use the Chinese proverb that banning Pogo as a matter of principle is just beginning of a very complicated multi-layered process that has both law enforcement and at the same time bureaucratic reform aspects including clean clean up the regulations around late filing of birth certificates I think we shouldn't allow for birth certificates to be easily late filed so late and easily be acquired I think there has to be extra layers of scrutiny put there so we have to clean up also our bureaucracy because we have allowed so many people like bamban mayor Alis go to go all the way and even there to become a mayor of a city yeah that Alis go issue really open the cand kind of firms Dr Rene would you like to add on that uh just a few points no uh number one of course what the president can do I think he already mentioned this during his speech he's instructed P Court to cancel all the franchises issues to pogos uh I think the key Point here is that we have to understand those pogos are operated by a transnational criminal organization just make the condition kind of hostile to them they could transfer elsewhere they will not stick it out they will not try to go underground making their cost more expensive because actually it's very difficult to hide the Pogo operation here the major challenge of course is the fact that I read some articles that some Filipinos who have work in pogos have established local version of the pogos so a number of Filipinos have emulated the system they have conducted their own operation towards China but they're owned by Filipinos because the technology has been passed on to Filipinos so this is another challenging matter so I I guess at this point in time we're only targeting the pogos that are owned by the transnational criminal networks but what of course in the Pogo the technology the system of operating Pogo get inculcated by uh you know the Filipinos Filipino business people all right thank you doc uh Renee we have several questions more about the West Philippine Sea but before we go to that and um National Security before we go to that I have a question sent to me for Dr Kiko this one is about environmental governance sir the President also mentioned the Philippines hosting the loss and damage Fund in hisa which is intended to assist developing countries reeling from the adverse effects of the climate crisis we were just discussing this as well at the start of the open Forum about how we've been seeing flooding in many areas of lozon um in the past few days how important do you think sir is the loss and damage fund to the Philippines and um considering what's happening now in terms of uh in in climate change what environmental initiatives should be prioritized or developed using this fund sir okay uh that is that is something that is very welcome when the president mentioned that we will really uh go for uh uh the to be actively engaged in the that uh climate uh justice fund of course we have other other funds no like the people survival fund so these are types of green funds that are available to to countries that are vulnerable and and that includes the Philippines but the problem is the absorptive capacity is it's because we don't have uh enough uh uh enough capacity uh I I would argue that what we need are knowledge Partnerships uh we have to access those funds but we we have to to establish a clear Pro program and I think this is where uh the environment M and climate action disaster preparedness would matter uh for politicians uh in in as an electoral uh something that can provide elector electoral dividends but uh the these are in the in the in in the framework of providing green jobs uh that is the key concern of of uh Filipino voters uh jobs uh livelihood uh salaries uh prices of food but uh I I think uh given the the new economy and I would like to relate also the loss of jobs in the the Pogo industry uh because many Filipinos are also uh engaged there no they they have uh jobs but uh as Andrew mentioned in in his presentation this are jobs that are in the lower chain of the digital industry so for example call centers they are of the the law technology no but but they're still part of the information and Communications technology but what I'm proposing there is a is a very strong link that is needed uh with respect to the types of uh uh services that should be produced Goods goods and services uh I would like to refer to the opening message of uh Professor dind manhit uh if we engage in e-governance in Digital Services we will create more jobs for Filipinos but this would require therefore uh higher investments in education uh I would propose uh Stronger uh investments in incubating Technologies but what this means is that there has to be stronger relationship between universities and the city governments cities lgus in developing uh projects related to disaster preparedness even in uh rainwater collector systems uh we have a law on that uh every every lgu should have a rainwater collection system but the problem is uh who will maintain these uh Technologies uh there is a need to have local weather forecasting systems and these are systems that can be developed uh using data uh and data maintained by uh universities in cooperation with the local government units so what I'm suggesting is that green jobs climate change jobs should be explored and finally uh Joyce I would like to mention uh in my presentation I talk about critical minerals and uh because that's part of the Paris agreement uh to uh transition towards renewable energy and so uh what we're doing is uh we have not been uh actually topping our mineral resources uh but we do uh export uh for example nickel to China but because of the uh the meeting between the uh Philippines Japan the United States there there is an agreement to cooperate better on renewable energy so that uh nickel for example can be processed in the Philippines instead of exporting it but then have a a linkage with the the renewable in uh energy industry so in in fact what we are creating is a circular economy uh an economic value chain that uh will create more jobs and and and and these sectors would be in the renewable energy sector in the green uh green circular economy sector in the climate uh change and disaster preparedness sector so uh that's uh let's turn around our our reputation as a uh top three country in disasters and after all this is part of uh is it part of The New Normal uh with we are really facing disasters but why not uh develop Tech technologies that will make us more resilient and provide more jobs to our citizens yes very important that's very uh relevant and timely Dr Kiko thank you for your answer um we have another question from our participant this is related to what we have been discussing also about I think this is connected to Pogo as well um and narratives uh this is from liot he he is asking while our narratives being SC is are being scrutinized and monitored are focused on Maritime incidents knowing full well that threats are no longer just kinetic but have cross digital and influence should the Philippine government and other institutions come out more openly about undue influence by Foreign threats on our domestic politics including domestic actors mirroring narratives from overseas I think um Richard May might have touched on this very briefly earlier and maybe Dr Elma can also answer maybe we can hear from Richard first Richard are you still with us uh I'll defer to almaa and then I'll come in okay doc Elma uh the question was should the Philippine government and other institutions come out more openly about undue influence by Foreign threats on our domestic politics I think this is in light as well of the go issue electing uh supposedly a Chinese um a Chinese National as a Philippine government official oh yeah um so I'd like to re thanks thanks CH uh you know uh I would like to reiterate my the point that I raised earlier that the indictment on the against the poo is really an indictment against our institutions so the fact that we've allowed fogos that are very much related to transnational criminal activities in which some Chinese or a lot of Chinese are are also being implicated uh says something about the uh the robustness or the lack of of robustness of our institutions of our regulatory institutions noting that the proliferation of these scam centers uh has been paid uh paved Way by uh countries with very weak regulatory environments uh and of course uh subnational governments that operate rather uh uh autonomously or semi-autonomously from their National governments which is in the case of the banban uh uh municipality and interlac which has been operating poos and it's only in 2024 having experienced the uh Escape of this Vietnamese guy that has put into Spotlight the existence of such a massive scam Center in in in in that town in the province of darlac so I think we need to be able to address that uh that is a lingering question that we need to look into as a country and if we are to uh achieve our goals in 2040 as presented to us by uh Mr Andrew earlier then we need to be able to capacitate ourselves uh given these institutions that would allow us to progress and Achieve our economic and our security goals um I also want to reiterate the point raised by Richard earlier that uh we need to operationalize the ban that is associated or that is that is announced by by the president himself uh what does the ban entail uh give considering that there are scores of thousands of uh Filipinos who would also whose livelihood Securities would be affected as a result of the ban so what is the what are the directions involved and I think the challenge is always there in our country being able to enforce our institutions thank you Joyce all right um Richard would you like to add on that should the Philippine government and other institutions come out more openly about undue influence by Foreign threats on our domestic politics Richard are you there or maybe Dr Rene would you like to address the question sir should the Philippine government um and other institutions come out more openly about undue influence by Foreign threats on our domestic politics including I think it's been started yeah been started I've attended a number of activities organized by the uh National Security Council the presidential communication office that has to do with force uh and even the Armed Force of the Philippines that has to do with of course uh informing the public about what we called malign influence operation how do we have to deal with it but of course the most important uh way to address this issue is to educate our public the Filipino people uh the fact that of course as mentioned by my good friend from the University of the phines uh Neil Silva the you know the competition between China and the Philippines in over the West Philippines is also happening in what they call the cognitive realm you know China has actively be conducting cognitive Warfare basically trying to change the narrative and of course the what I call the psychological milu of the Filipinos regarding this very important issue the most important point of course is to inform our people how to be able to identify whether this you know this information they're getting is a part of China's malign information uh information Warfare as of course a very good case what happened a couple of weeks ago when of course you have a ranking member of the legislation you know who basically warned us about the Chinese hypers uh Sonic uh missiles right they supposed to be directed against nine or 25 uh targets here in the Philippines so this is how bra how blatant Chinese influence operation has been conducted even at the highest Office of the land you know I don't know whether she was being used by the Chinese or she's actively being part of this malign operation but this is of course a wakeup call for us that it is happening actively here and in some certain cases it might involve ranking members of the government all right thank you very much Dr re um maybe you would like to answer as well we have another question on foreign policy uh this is from belan or well I see Richard now Richard would you like to address the question first regarding forign threats yeah I mean the good thing is sorry I just had to run because the airport is a mess right now well I mean when it comes to the Pogo issue I mean uh the good thing is when it comes to foreign influence issues we're not alone that we had other democracies like Australia which was the first major democracy to deal with foreign influence operations we have a blueprint from Australia we have also a blueprint from neighboring Taiwan one so we're not alone in this and many countries came before us and these are democratic countries who have been able to preserve their basic freedoms and at the same time balance that against their National Security consideration I think ultimately the Pogo issue the West Philippines challenge all of this should have been should be a wakeup call and kind of a precursor for a whole of nation approach we really should have a whole of nation approach so I see more and more Civil Society engagement on these issues the ATO Convoy operations see more um you know religious groups the Catholic Church getting involved on this issue so we just have to give more time to our people and our nation to wake up because for a very long time we were overdependence on the United States and then for almost five years if not six years of theti this presidency there was this constant uh you know disinformation there was this constant um you know all sorts of dissonance that was created by the former president um so I think we just have to give our country a little bit more time but the goal should be a hall of a Nation approach and a democratic Hall of nation approach which is what Taiwan has been doing very effectively and also Australia and other major democracy have been also engaged in recent years so we're not alone and the blueprints are actually there we just need a bit more time and a proper replication of this good models out there okay thank you Richard and uh going back to Dr Rene uh related to uh best practices from other countries or and relationship with other countries uh questioned by s Bel Tran with the Raa with Japan underway and other countries such as France Canada and New Zealand considering their own defense agreements with the Philippines how does this affect the country standing on the global stage and position itself in its ability to influence diplomatic geopolitical Affairs and a quick followup to that what other effects or benefits can we expect with the Philippines entering multiple defense ties with other countries sir of course we have to understand the context why we are signing a lot of security partnership Arrangements of course this is an effort basically to address the limitation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and of course the uh the country itself in terms of the fact that we are confronted with a very aggressive expansionist power that happened to have have the largest Navy in the world and of course having the second largest economy in the world so when you're fa with this kind of a threat how do you basically address it of course we could B basically you know the CI in a way is an an effort to develop our military capability but it's not enough we have to leverage uh in terms of our treaty alliance with the United States and security Partners so let's look at what do they contribute number one of course it's more of symbolism it's really more uh directed to us to our people that we are not alone that other countries are concerned about the fact that we're confronted with what I call the quid essential security challenge for the Philippines in the 21st century that is course and expansionist China so number two of course in matter of symbolism the other of course would be an element of training joint training possible uh limited security Partnerships like for example in the case of Japan Japan is very crucial primarily because of number one the proximity of Japan Japan is also a very close economic partner and the fact that both countries are middle Powers you know it'll be a you know mutually beneficial military exercises that will be conducted here in the Philippines and also in Japan so this develop of course this Expos the Japanese in terms of the terrain here in Southeast Asia and for the Philippine military to be exposed to what you know the uh high level of technological development of the uh Japanese self-defense Force so there's an element there of training there also an element of deterrence but of course the most crucial part and this is when we talk about Alliance of course we have to understand we only have one treaty Ally and that's of course the United States so the bottom line here of course but you know at this point in time I basically only think of the United States Australia and probably Japan is when push comes to sh we would expect assistance from them either direct military Assistance or at least a uh you know assistance in terms of diplomatic support support and so on so again we have to understand why are we undertaking all this activities is because the clear of the fact that we are faced with a clear and impress danger an expansionist aggressive China which we could not address simply on our own BAS Bas on our own capabilities okay thank you very much Dr and one just to answer one very quick question left by our another participant Ella hermono very quickly before we close or and before I ask for your closing statements um are as you mentioned in your presentation to Dr Rene maybe Dr Alma can also answer this since this is also about the West philippin SE many countries in thean are trying to deepend bilateral relations with China and it is oh sorry only the Philippines who sees China as a national security threat how should the Philippines continue asserting its sou China SE claims while balancing our ties with other asan members maybe Dr Rene Dr Elma very quickly okay uh number one of course is we have to under you know basically for ourselves we have to understand asan is not a supranational organization asan operates on the basis primarily of intergovernmental so you have countries in asan like for example Cambodia what Cambodia did in 2012 prevent Asian from of course coming out with a for the first time with a communicate simply because uh of cambodia's national interest that to get more money from China so we basically have to take this position but at the same time explaining to other Asian countries not all we cannot expect to get support from the you know especially from Mainland as uh Southeast Asian countries but more in the maritime Southeast Asian countries that what we're doing of course is defending our national interest which is of course the norm in asan each asan member state is concerned about its own national interests there's no notion of an Assan supranational interest there and of course explaining to them that what we're doing is actually not only good for the Philippines it's good for Asian more specifically to the maritime Southeast you know Maritime southeast Asia and has something to do with addressing the Quin essential security challenge for maritime southeast Asia Chinese Maritime expansion Dr Elma very quickly would you like to answer yes uh I think the value of Asia now is very symbolic at this point uh uh President marus should continue to assert Asian centrality I mean side by side it's our our involvement our country's involvement in the new Squad and our uh strengthened involvement in with security Partnerships with Australia Japan uh the United Kingdom um uh I think what what we are seeing here is that despite the seeming irrelevance of of asien at this point uh in view of the fact that we cannot come up with the Consolidated position as to uh it uh Asian's position Visa uh the upended uh China threatening West Philippines see it's important for us to maintain uh our relations with asien maintained importance of Asian at least in at the level of promoting and uh promoting the uh code of conduct talks for whatever uh for whatever purpose they will serve and uh um uh promoting uh uh supporters greater support for the arbitral ruling but more importantly perhaps also looking at certain models from Asian from our Asian Partners specifically from Vietnam and how we can um uh Traverse this new environment of sustained sea control measures or uh actions on the part of China given our uh alliance with the United States so I I see uh I I see the importance of re looking into our alliance commitments in the context of um um cultivating greater Partnerships with like-minded states such as for instance Japan Canada France so that we can and upend our interoperability because we do have to recognize that number one we have to enhance our Maritime presence given the existence of possibly two fronts now given the inextricable link between the West philippin Sea and the Taiwan conflict uh that is evolving at the moment second um um the whole notion of reciprocal access is important that our uh Maritime security also relies on us and not not necessarily and not totally on our alliance Partners so we need to be able to cultivate something that we can learn from our um from our strategic Partners um thank you Joy thank you Dr Elma and to close our discussion I'd like to ask for just a closing statement from all our speakers perhaps um maybe a reminder to uh to the Filipino people as we enter another election season as we enter another election year um we expect Filipinos to be bombarded with various narratives coming from different actors with their own um pushing their own uh vested interests what would you like to remind the Filipino people as they as we enter another election season considering everything that we've discussed this morning maybe Richard would you like to start yeah I mean I think first of all we have to learn this kind of a mature political culture whereby we don't make opinions or votes based on tribal or narrow partisan interests I think you know it doesn't matter you voted for one president or not you have to hold the president to account and in the same uh you know Spirit you may not like certain candidate or not you may not like their party but if that candidate stands for something that advances the Philippine national interest whether it's in terms of our economic National interest or national security interest you have to go and support for those kind of people I think what we lack in the the Philippines is this kind of a culture of Coalition building this culture of critical thinking that goes beyond partisanship I think we have had too much cancel culture and toxicity and polarization so I hope in the upcoming elections we send the right message because of course the midterm elections is is not the same as presidential elections it's a referendum on the current Administration and at the same time it's also a referendum on the alternatives to the current Administration so vote in ways that puts the right people in position of power or or at least signals to the right people that there is a future for them in politics but more importantly vote also in ways that signals to the right ad to the administration uh you know which things are getting right and they have to continue with that and perhaps what are the areas that they have to make adjustments I know that sounds vague but I think that's a first principle upon which we have to operate if we want to be mature citizens and and and contribute to a kind of a political culture that that allows for good leadership competent leadership to thrive okay thank you Richard um doc Kiko uh our our people are looking for uh for jobs and uh jobs that that pay them well uh for for for them to have a good quality of life so the new jobs would be generated in uh in the new economy anchored on digital transformation uh how we respond to climate change and how to be resilient so I would like our people and our politicians to be be able to come up with programs that will address these new realities how to create new jobs and how to to harness Technologies and uh Foster knowledge Partnerships and bring up the level of education and bring together uh key stakeholders including uh universities uh local government units incoming up with new approaches to disaster resilience and disaster preparedness hi thank you doc Kiko uh doc grene please okay one thing positive about this current Administration is the fact that it has alerted us to what I call the Queen essential security challenge that the Philippines faces in the third decade of the 21st century and that of course again uh what has been raised earlier by the late president B Akin deter the fact that their challenge Here fors China the current Administration in fact had even more bigger more attention and more resources in addressing this issue well of course the key challenge here is uh I basically see three major challenges number one of course to in uh inform the Filipino public that this security issue would be generational it will affect all of us uh not only the you know our Our Generation but probably uh uh uh two or three more Generations Filipinos because as president Marcus mentioned when he was in cber last year our main competitor here our main threat is powerful determined and of course as always rely on you know incremental approach and achieving its goal number two it's also an opportunity for us to develop national cohesion of course you have malign operations happening here you'll have an election that will be happening next year so it's a chance for us to basically create a narrative that will unite Us in face of this uh challenge the third one of course is also to use this security challenge as an opportunity to put our house into order and this was clearly raised by Andrew when he was talking about of course what will be the impact of the trilateral security Partnerships that would was formed last April uh it's not only in terms of building up our defense capability it's also opportunity for us to develop to develop Industries and to transform our economy from then that's primarily service driven to one that is course based on industry uh manufacturing that could also en able us not only to De you know manufacture the necessary weapon system for the Armed Forces of Philippines but of course push our country into a status of a middle income or a middle power in the 21st century thank you very much for your attention thank you Dr n and lastly Dr Elma please yes um you know it's hard to be hopeful during election season um every elections I I think we will be confronted with the same old challenges of patronage politics clientelistic electoral practices in the absence of this organized framework for managing electoral campaign and finances questions on transparency and accountability and the sustained educational debates on the part of our candidates so I think um uh Strat base included uh the higher educational institutions us ourselves in the Academia should really play a very important role in um in broadening the uh perspectives of our of our stakeholders of our electoral population the youth will vote again uh midterm and on 2028 we w't satisfied with the results of the last elections in fact um so I think the struggle goes on and there's a need for us to play a very uh a prominent role in educating the youth and in um civilianized and or lame lionizing the issues that confront our electoral population today thank you Joy all right thank you very much doc Elma and thank you to all of our speakers for today it was a very comprehensive and insightful discussion uh we had a very insightful uh discussion this morning thank you very much again and I turn the floor back to you Dana all right uh um everyone I hope you can all give them a virtual Round of Applause so thank you so much to our speakers and uh also Joyce for moderating this session um I'd like to take this time to call once again our speakers and our lovely moderator Joyce for a quick photo opportunity so if our um Tech Team can please prepare that thank you so much okay um is still with us or or he ran off to his flight now we can we can edit that in edit Richard in okay smile all good all good thank you so much Joyce thank you so much once again you um so before we end our Forum today we would like to invite everyone to another important forum uh next week that we're hosting entitled transparent governance for climate resilience exploring challenges and opportunities so you could see the poster here on screen um it will be held next week July 29 at the aim Conference Center so this event is organized by our environmental advocacy partner the Philippine business for environmental stewardship so if you're interested in joining uh feel free to send an email to Philippine best uh that is BD at gmail.com once again that's Philippine best gmail.com so we hope to see you there as well and in person this time so that ends our form for today thank you very much once again to all of our speakers and to everyone who joined us here via zoom and also through FB live stream so I am Dana Denai the chief of staff of Strat based group have a good rest of the day everyone [Music] [Music] oh [Music]