China Should Understand This: Filipinos Are Not Backing Down

By Cliff Potts, CSO and Editor-in-Chief
WPS News

BAYBAY CITY, Leyte, Philippines — 29 June 2026 — 07:05 PhST

China should pay attention to the numbers.

Not because surveys decide sovereignty. They do not. International law, maritime rights, history, geography, and national resolve matter more than opinion polling. But surveys can reveal something that foreign ministries, coast guard commanders, and gray-zone strategists often pretend not to see.

The Filipino public is not giving up the West Philippine Sea.

A Pulse Asia survey commissioned by the Stratbase Institute found that 86% of Filipinos support working with like-minded nations to defend the West Philippine Sea in accordance with the 2016 arbitral award. Only 3% disagreed.

That is not confusion. That is not manipulation. That is not America whispering into Manila’s ear.

That is the Filipino people saying they understand what is happening.

China has spent years trying to normalize pressure in Philippine waters. Coast guard vessels. Maritime militia. Water cannons. Blockades. Barriers. Close approaches. Loud claims of sovereignty repeated so often that Beijing appears to believe repetition can replace law.

It cannot.

The Philippines has already won the legal argument. In 2016, the arbitral tribunal in The Hague ruled that China’s sweeping historic-rights claim inside the so-called nine-dash line had no legal basis where it exceeded rights allowed under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China rejected the ruling, but rejection is not repeal. Beijing may refuse to accept the award, but it cannot make the award disappear.

That is the first message China should hear clearly: the Philippines has not forgotten.

The second message is just as important: Filipinos are not asking for war. They are asking for their country not to surrender by inches.

There is a difference.

When Filipinos support alliances with the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, South Korea, and other partners, that does not mean they are begging for conflict. It means they understand the reality of power. The Philippines cannot match China ship for ship. It cannot outspend China. It cannot outbuild China. It cannot win a contest based purely on intimidation.

But it does not have to.

The Philippines has law. It has geography. It has allies. It has fishermen whose lives are tied to those waters. It has a public that understands what is at stake. And it has a history that makes submission to foreign pressure a very hard sell.

China should understand that part most of all.

This is a country that remembers colonial rule. It remembers occupation. It remembers what happens when stronger powers decide smaller nations should know their place. Filipinos may argue loudly among themselves. They may distrust politicians. They may disagree over parties, presidents, policies, and alliances. But when a foreign power keeps pressing against Philippine waters, Philippine fishermen, and Philippine sovereignty, something deeper starts to harden.

That is what the survey shows.

China’s strategy in the West Philippine Sea depends on exhaustion. Push today. Deny tomorrow. Return next week. Install a barrier. Remove it. Send ships. Claim innocence. Blame Manila. Blame Washington. Blame “provocation.” Repeat the process until the unacceptable begins to feel routine.

That strategy is clever. It is also morally rotten.

The recent concern over a floating structure at Scarborough Shoal is a perfect example. To Beijing, perhaps it is just another move on the board: test, deny, adjust, repeat. To Filipinos, it looks like the same old pattern that turned reefs and maritime features elsewhere into hardened facts on the water.

China says it wants stability. Then it should stop behaving like stability means everyone else must accept Chinese control.

China says it wants peace. Then it should stop treating peace as the silence of smaller nations.

China says it respects international law. Then it should act like the 2016 arbitral award exists.

The West Philippine Sea is not a slogan. It is not a campaign prop. It is not a convenient way for politicians to wave a flag. It is food security. It is fishing access. It is maritime rights. It is national dignity. It is the question of whether a smaller country can still stand on law when a larger power prefers force, pressure, and manufactured inevitability.

That is why the Filipino public’s answer matters.

Most Filipinos do not want reckless confrontation. They do not want young sailors or coast guard personnel placed in danger for political theater. They do not want a shooting war in their waters. No sane person does.

But they also understand the danger of pretending that backing down is the same thing as peace.

It is not.

Backing down only teaches the bully that pressure works.

The better path is clear: document every incident, expose every act of coercion, strengthen the Philippine Coast Guard and Navy, protect fisherfolk, deepen defense and diplomatic partnerships, insist on the 2016 arbitral award, and keep the West Philippine Sea issue in front of the world until China understands that the Philippines cannot simply be worn down.

That is not warmongering. That is national survival.

China should stop mistaking Filipino patience for weakness. It should stop mistaking diplomacy for fear. It should stop mistaking the Philippines’ smaller size for a lack of will.

The Filipino people have spoken plainly enough.

They would rather resist than yield.

And Beijing would be foolish not to hear them.

References

Associated Press. (2026, June). The Philippines protests China’s floating structure on the disputed South China Sea shoal.

Daily Guardian. (2026, June 15). 86% of Filipinos favor alliances to defend West Philippine Sea.

Permanent Court of Arbitration. (2016, July 12). The South China Sea Arbitration: The Republic of the Philippines v. The People’s Republic of China.

Reuters. (2026, June). Philippines says floating platform removed from Scarborough Shoal.

Reuters. (2026, June). Philippines urges China to remove shoal structure, warns against island-building.