BY the close of 2025, I published two essays mapping the terrain before it shifted — one dissecting Washington’s National Security Strategy (NSS), the other tracing Beijing’s quiet, methodical ascent (TMT, Dec. 17 and 31, 2025). Both were quickly buried by scandals dominating public discourse — the flood control exposés that tainted the highest echelon of Philippine political leadership. 

I have since chosen — temporarily — to step away from the exhausting task of chronicling local betrayals. Corruption is corrosive, but global power shifts are existential. Less lurid perhaps, but infinitely more consequential. Lost amid our local noise are a series of American moves, gestating since late 2025, now erupting with the capacity to reorder global stability.

Venezuela: Diplomacy by impulse

The new year’s shock was Washington’s “invasion” of Venezuela and abduction of Nicolás Maduro, a return to overt regime change veiled as law enforcement operations against a narco-terrorist. By seizing the world’s largest oil reserves, Washington blocked Maduro’s pivot to the yuan, a shift that threatened the dollar’s global reserve status, denying China a strategic financial breach. 

The operation bypassed the US Congress, strained international law, and conveniently advanced longstanding efforts to isolate Cuba by severing its energy lifeline. It fit a broader pattern — Greenland, Panama, strategic chokepoints — erratic maneuvers aimed at obstructing Beijing’s rise. This was a high-risk wager on financial hegemony: preserve dollar dominance, deny China hemispheric access, and accept instability as collateral damage. (And it conveniently knocked Epstein off the front pages.)

For the Philippines and other allies, the lesson is sobering. Power exercised by impulse renders alliances capricious. When policy follows mood instead of institutional consensus, partnerships cease to reassure.

Liberation abroad, theater at home

There is, however, another side to Maduro’s fall, one largely erased in Western political theater. In Caracas, citizens brutalized by decades of socialist misrule surged into the streets in celebration; scenes echoing our own 1986 moment, when the Marcos dictatorship collapsed and a nation seized a fleeting breath of freedom.

Conversely, American progressives responded with ritual outrage and cries of “imperialism.” This reflex is less analysis than affliction; Trump 

Derangement Syndrome has become so consuming that Venezuela itself vanished from view. 

A once-functional country was reduced to a narco-state by corruption, hyperinflation and “equality” enforced at gunpoint. Those who fled hunger and terror now find themselves lectured by activists safely insulated from the consequences of the ideology they defend.

This does not absolve Washington from scrutiny. Trump’s claim that the US will “run” Venezuela invites legitimate fears of mission creep and administrative hubris. Strategic interests and risks are real. However, the moral divide remains stark: those who endured the dictatorship are celebrating its collapse, while those who never suffered under it are the ones mourning its end.

The Iraq warning

The Venezuelan episode inevitably recalls another American “moment of liberation” — Iraq, 2003. Then, too, statues fell and crowds cheered. “Mission accomplished” followed swiftly. What came next was occupation, insurgency and a costly lesson in what happens the day after.

The parallels are instructive. Remove the ruler and you create a vacuum. Assume foreign administrators can replace local governance and you invite resentment. Dress strategic interests as moral crusades and credibility collapses. Venezuela’s operation was surgical and greeted with relief, but history warns that the real danger lies not in the takedown, but in “who runs the trains the morning after.”

The NSS: Strategy by silence

This unpredictability is now codified in Washington’s NSS — a document best described as “Trumpism in formal wear.” It speaks of strength and sovereignty, but its subtext is blunt: America will focus narrowly on what it must, and its partners should prepare to fend for themselves.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the Indo-Pacific. The Philippines, America’s oldest treaty ally in Asia, a former colony, and a frontline state in the First Island Chain — is not mentioned at all. This omission is not oversight; it is demotion.

Manila is increasingly treated as useful in crisis, expendable in diplomacy. We remain neither equal partners nor formal vassals, merely disposable assets. EDCA sites and joint patrols provide optics, not assurance. History no longer guarantees attention. Since 1898, our relationship with Washington has oscillated between utility and neglect. The 1991 expulsion of US bases was our brief apex of self-respect — an autonomy we failed to consolidate. Today, an alliance built on episodic interest is quicksand; it appears firm until it begins to pull us under.

The quiet empire: Power that builds

While Washington convulses — tariffs, scandals, impulsive strikes — China advances as a whisper. Its strategy is the inverse of American spectacle. Where the US jolts, Beijing builds.

Through the Belt and Road Initiative, China builds ports, railways, and energy corridors; through 5G and digital platforms, it installs the operating system of future economies; by controlling critical minerals, it quietly tethers global industry to its production base.

This is structural power — durable, embedded and difficult to dislodge. Nations do not wake up one day to discover Chinese influence; they simply find themselves unable to function without Chinese systems.

Converging risks

Viewed together — the Venezuelan intervention, the NSS’ strategic silence, and China’s accelerating footprint — the arc is clear. American discipline erodes as Chinese structural power consolidates. US commitment thins and turns transactional; Beijing’s presence becomes constant. One superpower behaves like a landlord who appears only to collect rent or douse fires. The other acts like the contractor rebuilding the house. Over time, the builder owns the structure. 

In Southeast Asia, particularly in the West Philippine Sea, this is no abstraction. We duel with water cannons while the map is quietly redrawn. America drops in, makes a statement, and moves on. In geopolitics, presence — not promises — decides who stays.

PH choice: Autonomy or drift

Manila now confronts an uncomfortable arithmetic of power: an America increasingly inward-looking and fatigued by commitments, and a China patiently advancing, already embedded in the region’s future. The danger is not sudden American abandonment, but a quieter decay — Washington assumes Philippine loyalty while offering diminishing returns, as Beijing steadily compresses Manila’s strategic space.

The implications are structural. Sentiment and shared memory no longer anchors the alliance. It is drifting toward cold transactionalism, where Manila must perpetually audition for relevance before a distracted superpower. Treaty language is not leverage. Geography sharpens the reality: China lies 800 kilometers away; America remains 11,000 km distant. Distance still matters — strategically and psychologically.

A new national strategy is imperative. The Philippines must build real military and economic capacity rather than subcontract its security to promises. It must widen its strategic aperture — deepening ties with Japan, Australia and other steady middle powers. And more importantly, it must finally confront massive corruption not as scandal, but as a first-order national-security threat.

Chinese influence does not arrive with banners; it embeds through systems — quiet, structural, and with unnerving permanence. If Manila fails to adapt, it will not shape its future. It will awaken to discover that the future has already been chosen around it, for it, and without it.

The Senate President crowed yesterday that the party he nominally coheads, PDP-Laban, has a “pleasant problem” — too many potential senatorial candidates. Koko Pimentel’s estimate is they have up to 20 possible choices for the 12-person slate for the 2019 senatorial race. But his list includes the five administration-affiliated senatorial incumbents up for reelection next year. This is a group that has made noises that, much as it prefers to remain in the administration camp, it is unhappy with the way PDP-Laban has been designating its local leaders and candidates, and therefore prefers to strike out on its own, perhaps in alliance with the other administration (regional) party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, headed by the President’s daughter and current Davao City mayor, Sara Duterte.

Setting aside, then, the five-person “Force,” the administration-oriented but not PDP-friendly reelectionists (Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, and JV Ejercito), what Koko’s crowing over is a mixed bag. Some of them have been floated by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (with whom Mayor Duterte clashed in recent months): six representatives (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is in her last term in the House of Representatives; Albee Benitez, Karlo Nograles, Rey Umali, Geraldine Roman, and Zajid Mangudadatu), three Cabinet members (Bong Go, Harry Roque, and Francis Tolentino), and two other officials (Mocha Uson and Ronald dela Rosa), which still only adds up to 11 possible candidates (who are the missing three?).

Of all of these, the “Force” reelectionists are only fair-weather allies of the present dispensation; their setting themselves apart is about much more than the mess PDP-Laban made in, say, San Juan where support for the Zamoras makes it extremely unattractive for JV Ejercito to consider being in the same slate. Their cohesion is about thinking ahead: Creating the nucleus for the main coalition to beat in the 2022 presidential election. The contingent of congressmen and congresswomen who could become candidates for the Senate, however, seems more a means to kick the Speaker’s rivals upstairs (at least in the case of Benitez and Arroyo) and pad the candidates’ list with token but sacrificial candidates, a similar situation to the executive officials being mentioned as possible candidates (of the executive officials, only Go seems viable, but making him run would deprive the President of the man who actually runs the executive department, and would be a clear signal that the administration is shifting to a post-term protection attitude instead of the more ambitious system-change mode it’s been on, so far).

Vice President Leni Robredo has been more circumspect, saying she’s not sure the Liberal Party can even muster a full slate. The party chair, Kiko Pangilinan, denied that a list circulating online (incumbent Bam Aquino, former senators Mar Roxas, Jun Magsaysay, TG Guingona, current and former representatives Jose Christopher Belmonte, Kaka Bag-ao, Edcel Lagman, Raul Daza, Gary Alejano and Erin Tañada, former governor Eddie Panlilio and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña) had any basis in fact.

What both lists have in common is they could be surveys-on-the-cheap, trial balloons to get the public pulse. Until the 17th Congress reconvenes briefly from May 14 to June 1 for the tail end of its second regular session (only to adjourn sine die until the third regular session begins on July 23), it has nothing much to do. Except, that is, for the barangay elections in May, after a last-ditch effort by the House to postpone them yet again to October failed.

Names can be floated but the real signal will come in July, when the President mounts the rostrum and calls for the big push for a new constitution—or not. Connected to this would be whether the Supreme Court disposes of its own chief, which would spare the Senate—and thus, free up the legislative calendar—to consider Charter change instead of an impeachment trial. In the meantime, what congressmen do seem abuzz over is an unrefusable invitation to the Palace tomorrow — to mark Arroyo’s birthday. An event possibly pregnant with meaning.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.