The South China Sea remains a volatile flashpoint, with China’s aggression reaching alarming new heights. In February 2025, a Philippine BFAR aircraft patrolling near Scarborough Shoal was dangerously intercepted by a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) helicopter, which flew within a mere 10 feet of the patrol plane in a blatant attempt to “expel” it from what China claims as its territorial airspace. This aerial confrontation follows a pattern of maritime hostility – such as the March 2024 water cannon attacks on the Unaizah May 4 during a resupply mission to the BRP Sierra Madre. Such incidents underscore Beijing’s campaign to assert its expansive territorial claims through intimidation.
China’s escalating gray zone tactics and disinformation campaigns are pushing the Philippines to a breaking point, as Beijing warned of a “crossroads” in bilateral relations. The February 2025 aerial incident near Scarborough Shoal, coupled with ongoing maritime harassment – like the continued water cannon attacks on Philippine resupply missions to Second Thomas Shoal – demonstrate China’s intensifying efforts to dominate the region. Each unaddressed provocation weakens the Philippines’ ability to defend its territorial rights, while testing the resolve of its allies, particularly the United States, which has reiterated its “ironclad commitment” to Manila.
The Philippines’ fragmented maritime responses continue to play into China’s hands, eroding Manila’s sovereignty with each unchecked act of aggression. Without a unified strategy, Manila risks ceding control of the narrative – and the sea – to Beijing.
It’s time for Manila to forge a comprehensive strategy to counter China’s kinetic maritime actions. As a key ally to the Philippines, and partner in the region, the United States is in a unique position to support the Philippines in this effort to deter and resist China’s maritime aggression.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Executive Order 57, signed on March 31, 2024, established the National Maritime Council (NMC) to integrate the Philippine Navy (PN), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR). Yet, over a year later, as of April 2025, the NMC has failed to deliver on its promise. Despite high-profile meetings, such as the March 2025 talks with Japan to counter China’s unilateral actions, the NMC has not produced a concrete operational framework. Chinese aggression has only intensified, with aerial confrontations like the February 2025 Scarborough Shoal incident adding a new dimension to the threat.
Nearly a year since its establishment under Executive Order No. 57, the NMC has yet to introduce a tangible operational framework, failing to streamline the disjointed responses of the Philippine Navy, Coast Guard, and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources – the very problem the order purportedly set out to resolve. The NMC’s inability to unify Manila’s maritime agencies continues to undermine the Philippines’ defense of its waters.
Despite its ambitious framing, the National Maritime Council has, in practice, served as little more than a bureaucratic mouthpiece, issuing statements rather than implementing concrete, strategic responses to China’s maritime aggression. While its press releases have reaffirmed Manila’s commitment to defending its waters, these proclamations have not translated into action; harassment by the Chinese Coast Guard and maritime militia has only intensified, most notably in the continued water cannon attacks on resupply missions to Second Thomas Shoal.
The current calculus is clearly not working – the Philippine government has lodged hundreds of protests in nearly 10 years, with no change to China’s aggressive behavior. There is a real and pressing need for interoperability training, informed procurement, and a consistent maritime security strategy if the Philippines’ positions in the South China Sea are going to be defended.
Beijing’s coordinated and carefully executed harassment pattern has kept Chinese forces from crossing any major red lines that would warrant major response by Manila and its allies. Response to actions such as these, however, has been disjointed and ineffective. The Philippines seeks to engage and deter the actions of the PLAN and China Coast Guard through what officials refer to as assertive transparency, in which traditionally inexpensive methods of gray zone warfare are made costly through “naming and shaming” – amplifying and calling attention to aggressive action. This has succeeded in bringing international attention and condemnation, but has failed to effectively curb the aggressive activity, and according to some, has actually increased the frequency and hostility of China’s campaign.
This is due in part to the way the Philippines conducts military and law enforcement action in the South China Sea. There are three major Filipino maritime entities that operate in the region: the Philippine Navy (PN), the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), each operating with their own command structures and reporting to different authorities.
Manila’s practice of dispersing the command structure of forward-facing maritime security elements, as well as dispersing the level and method of their responses, is giving China the upper hand. For example, when Chinese fishing vessels reportedly dumped cyanide into the surrounding Scarborough Shoal waters in early February, officials from the BFAR and PCG released contradictory statements, in which the two agencies failed to agree on whether China was behind the activity at all. This allowed for Beijing to control the narrative surrounding the events, using the disjointed nature of the Philippine response as an opportunity to deny the incident and allege that the Marcos administration has even less control over its government agencies than his predecessor, Duterte.
Having separate command structures creates significant risks: China has a track record of manipulating incidents into a pretext for escalation. In February 2024, Beijing utilized the pretext of a Chinese vessel capsizing while under pursuit from Taiwan’s Coast Guard to begin aggressive and provocative actions surrounding the island of Kinmen, including boarding a Taiwanese tourist vessel and establishing intrusive maritime patrols. China has already characterized unarmed supply missions undertaken by the Philippines as attempts to seize Chinese territory in order to justify the use of force against these vessels. With three separate command structures in the Philippines’ maritime security apparatus, each with different standard operating procedures and rules of engagement, the opportunity for China to capitalize on continuing confrontations grows.
Absent a comprehensive maritime security strategy, in which the agencies of the Philippines can present measured and careful responses to prevent future intrusions, the Philippines risks the situation in the South China Sea spiraling out of their control. Such escalation is exactly what China wants in this case, providing them the opportunity to justify whatever aggressive acts they choose. China’s Ministry of National Defense has often urged the Philippine government to stop “risky and futile provocations,” further accusing them of “repeatedly” infringing upon Chinese sovereignty.
The Philippines should, as part of their Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept, truly integrate the command structures of the Navy, Coast Guard, and Bureau of Fisheries. This would allow for improved interoperability, streamlined decision-making and response procedures, and the ability to create a true, comprehensive maritime security strategy in order to counter and deter aggressive actions by China. The PCG and BFAR have, in a civilian law enforcement capacity, operated under a similar agreement titled the “Integrated Marine Environment Monitoring System.” Such an agreement, except postured toward the South China Sea, would eliminate the currently disjointed nature of their assertive transparency campaign, presenting a united front in each agencies’ work. Integrating the command structures of the three entities will also greatly improve operational efficacy; taking examples from the Chinese Maritime Militia’s integration within the command structures of the PLAN and CCG, the BFAR and PCG would see their capacity for challenging Chinese actions increase exponentially.
Bringing the structures of the PCG, BFAR, and Philippine Navy under one authority would also allow for modernization efforts to be far more effective. Coalescing the training of personnel would save on time and resources while enhancing overall readiness and effectiveness through standardization of required concepts. BFAR vessels already participate in rotational deployments with the PCG around Scarborough Shoal; the more the agency is used in a China-facing law enforcement capacity, the more they will require integration into the defense apparatus.
The implementation of a comprehensive maritime security strategy and “whole-fleet” mentality will also reduce redundant ship and equipment procurements, freeing investment into capabilities to address the threats caused by a technologically and numerically superior PLAN. Investment into drone procurement is an avenue that would be incredibly beneficial for the Philippine Navy and Armed Forces of the Philippines as a whole; the ability to track vessels of China’s Maritime Militia and Coast Guard that go “AIS-dark” in contested waters and transmit that information across all three agencies, would greatly improve the Philippines’ capability to confront Chinese actions in the region. The recent U.S. sale of 8 MQ-9B Sky Guardian drones to Taiwan could serve as a model for such procurement, providing real-time satellite and over-the-horizon capability to the Philippine Navy at sea.
The Philippines is also bolstering regional alliances to counter China’s aggression. In March 2025, Philippine and Japanese officials met to discuss bilateral cooperation “against unilateral attempts by China and other countries to change the international order and the narrative.” This partnership, alongside the Philippines’ long-standing alliance with the United States under the U.S.-Philippine Mutual Defense Treaty, offers Manila a multilateral framework to resist Beijing’s pressure. However, without internal coordination among its maritime agencies, the Philippines struggles to fully leverage these alliances to deter China’s gray zone tactics.
The Philippines faces escalating maritime aggression from China that current disjointed responses have failed to deter. Integrating the command structures of the Philippine Navy, Coast Guard, and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources into a unified maritime apparatus is crucial. It would enable coordinated strategies, streamlined decision-making, enhanced operational capabilities, and faster modernization to counter China’s gray zone tactics and disinformation campaigns in the South China Sea. Forging this comprehensive approach would demonstrate Manila’s resolve to protect its sovereignty through pragmatic unification – the very deterrent threat needed to compel Beijing to restrain its unlawful conduct.