As it assumes ASEAN chair, the Philippines faces 3 hard tests
MANILA, Philippines (Updated October 30, 2025, 7:34 p.m.) — At the close of this year’s ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. officially accepted the bloc’s chairmanship from Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim — a symbolic handover that also placed on the Philippines' shoulders a set of regional problems with no easy fixes.
Leading the ASEAN bloc is an "enormous responsibility,” Marcos told reporters after the ceremony. “But at the same time, it provides us great opportunities.”
For 2026, Manila will have to prove that optimism can hold up as it inherits regional issues that have tested the bloc's unity and credibility, while itself trying to finalize a long-sought code of conduct to manage tensions in the South China Sea.
These are the three major issues the Philippines will face as it chairs ASEAN in 2026.
Code of Conduct
One of the most visible test-cards for the Philippines will be the long-delayed negotiation of a Code of Conduct (COC) between ASEAN and China — an agreement that has stalled for two decades.
Marcos made clear in Kuala Lumpur that the COC tops his agenda. When asked if Manila could accept a non-binding agreement, his answer suggested he hadn't gamed out the politics. "How do you make a treaty legally-binding?" he said. "If you sign a treaty, you are expected to be bound by it."
The problem is that Beijing and several ASEAN members have spent years avoiding precisely that commitment. Questions remain about whether the COC will have enforcement mechanisms, who it binds, what happens when violations occur, and even which waters it covers.
Ian Chong, a political scientist specializing in Southeast Asian politics at the National University of Singapore, explains that these questions "do not lend themselves to quick resolution."
ASEAN chairs, Chong said, are "essentially stewards who have to keep the issue moving and incrementally close the gaps between parties." No government wants to declare the COC dead and shoulder the blame for what comes next. But if negotiators rush to meet the 2026 deadline, "the issue about the usefulness or meaningfulness of any agreement may also arise."
"At heart I'm an optimist," Marcos told reporters. "We cannot give up."
If the COC is concluded in 2026, Marcos said he is open to the possibility of inviting Chinese President Xi Jinping to Manila for a signing ceremony — though he acknowledged that would only happen if "we have made significant progress."
But how likely will the deal actually go through? "When it comes to the South China Sea Code of Conduct I am always hopeful, but rarely optimistic," Erin Cook, a Jarka-based journalist analyzing Southeast Asian affairs, told Philstar.com. "The status quo of the last decade in obstruction from some members and pressure from Beijing to deal bilaterally has undermined ASEAN so deeply some see it as fundamental."
Still, Cook believes the Philippines will have the "most important voice of the moment on this."
"Marcos, as chair, will have encouragement from key member states as well as vocal observers and he owes it to his country to go as hard as he can for the year," she added.
The provocateur problem. The bigger challenge isn't the COC talks themselves. It's that Manila has to lead them while Beijing keeps challenging the Philippines in the South China Sea — and while some ASEAN members blame the Philippines for the tension.
A day before accepting the gavel, Marcos stood before regional leaders and condemned China's plan to declare a part of Scarborough Shoal as a nature reserve. Chinese Premier Li Qiang responded that the move complied with Chinese law.
Marcos later insisted to reporters he hadn't made "a strong statement" — he was just "laying out the facts."
Chong said some ASEAN members "like to paint" the Philippines' insistence on sovereignty claims as "provocative." Those governments "like to distance themselves from Manila and its position."
However, some ASEAN member states also quietly support the Philippines holding firm in its maritime tensions with China. It opens "space and options for them when managing their own ties and contentious issues with Beijing," Chong said.
Marcos acknowledged during his press conference the need to "redefine" the relationship with China so it's not only about both countries' dispute in the South China Sea. "I would very much like to say... we disagree, we agree to disagree, now let's do other things," he said.
Chong said Manila's best move is to "continue focusing on the rule of law and its importance." Most ASEAN members are middle or smaller powers, he noted, and "rule of law and restraint on major powers are important for their own interests."
On the flipside, there is a compelling argument that Manila's perceived bias should not be used against it. "Accusations of bias be damned," Cook said. "If a sitting chair can't use their own active experience of belligerence to stress the importance of the issue to the region, that's an existential crisis for the bloc."
Inherited crises
Beyond the South China Sea, Marcos inherits problems that predate the Philippines' chairmanship and, at the moment, show no signs of resolution.
Foremost among them is Myanmar, whose military junta remains defiant despite four years of diplomatic isolation following its 2021 coup. ASEAN's “five-point consensus” — its own peace roadmap adopted in 2021 — has failed to bring the junta to heel. This has left the ASEAN trapped between calls for tougher action and its own long-standing principle of noninterference.
The junta has scheduled so-called sham elections for December 28, just days before the Philippines formally takes over as chair. ASEAN has spent years debating how to respond to the junta's brutality but gotten nowhere. In Kuala Lumpur, Marcos said the bloc couldn't agree on whether to send election observers. "Everyone has a different idea," he said.
For now, ASEAN is leaving it to individual countries to decide. Marcos said he'll be "calling around" to see if consensus is possible before the polls. "It would be much preferable if ASEAN moves as one," he said. But if consensus proves impossible, "the Philippines will move by itself. We will agree to disagree."
The Myanmar problem captures what has been seen as ASEAN's core weakness: the bloc operates by consensus, which means any member can essentially veto collective action. That's kept ASEAN together for nearly six decades, but it's also why the group struggles to respond when crises demand speed or force.
Besides the Myanmar problem, the bloc will also have to deal with the Thai-Cambodia border friction despite a recently signed arrangement to ease hostilities. These problems "will need further management," Chong said.
Economic turbulence
The Philippines also faces a third test of keeping the ASEAN bloc steady while facing economic issues brought about by the trade war between Washington and Beijing.
At Kuala Lumpur, Chinese Premier Li Qiang called on ASEAN countries to "close ranks" against what he called "bullying" and "unreasonable" trade pressure from foreign powers — a barely veiled reference to US Prsident Donald Trump's tariffs.
The summit ended with the signing of an upgraded ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement — ACFTA 3.0 — a signal of where some members see their economic future.
The 11-member bloc is China's largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching $771 billion last year, according to data from ASEAN.
Chong said Manila will have to navigate these pressures carefully. The bloc needs to keep "smoothing over the economic uncertainties surrounding the US and PRC while promoting cooperation," he said.
Add to that what Chong described as "growing PRC pressure toward Taiwan and friction over the East China Sea" — tensions that could spill into Southeast Asia whether ASEAN wants them to or not.
When asked about Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim's warning that "outside interference" could worsen tensions in the South China Sea, Marcos said he "fully agreed" that ASEAN should lead. But though the dispute between the Philippines and China is bilateral, he said, "that does not preclude the involvement of ASEAN."
Marcos' reasoning: ASEAN includes countries "that are involved in trade with China, that are politically aligned even with China." That diversity, he argued, "makes it stronger" as it makes it "more likely for us to find a way forward."
Beijing "does have an interest in engaging ASEAN at a time when it faces heightened competition with Washington and its own domestic economy faces more headwinds," Chong said.
That creates leverage for Manila as chair. "That gives Manila an opportunity to manage ties between ASEAN members and the PRC," he said.
Overall, the top concerns the Philippines will face are "not new or novel but more entrenched," Cook said, citing as examples the Myanmar crisis and the South China Sea, and the "economic impact of the US tariffs" that will "begin to be felt on Manila’s watch."
"There are few opportunities to really put a unique stamp on the chair in those circumstances, but with the Philippines in such a crucial balancing act between China and the US and increasingly strident in protecting its territorial waters I would expect Marcos to be more outspoken than other chairs in recent years," Cook said. "Even if just by a little bit."
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