Why does the US need to support the Philippines?

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]We have to continue to persist, continue to shine a light on the illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive tactics that so-called gray zone, nothing gray about it. It's pretty black and white. They are committing provocations out in the South China Sea.

[00:00:15]They're violating international law, and it's hurting the livelihood of Filipinos. And so, we need to support our our ally, and we're doing what we can to expose what China is doing and to bring about international condemnation.

[00:00:29]And I will say, over the course of the time that I was ambassador, which happened to correspond almost exactly with President Marcos taking over, the Philippine government has done [music] a lot to bolster and to its its status under the arbitral ruling, to garner more supporters. I I don't have the figures right here, but it's a tremendous number of countries have signed on it's in support of the 2016 arbitral ruling in the last 4 years. [music] Part of the reason is because the conscious effort on the part of the Marcos administration to solicit that support and and work by others in the international law community, maritime law community in the Philippines to underscore the importance of that ruling. But also on the transparency initiative, it would be great if exposing just one of the many provocations would have would would serve to curtail China's activity.