In 2016, an international arbitral tribunal sided with the Philippines in a case against China’s claims in the South China Sea. However, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who sought to bring the Philippines’ foreign policy closer to China, said the ruling was just “paper” fit for the waste bin. After Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. became the president in 2022, Philippine foreign policy shifted back towards strengthening its alliance with the United States. How does the Philippines manage its economic and security relationships with China, the United States, and other Southeast Asian nations?
Marites Vitug joins the National Committee in an interview recorded on March 3, 2025 to discuss foreign policy towards China, the United States, and ASEAN.
Marites Vitug
Marites Dañguilan Vitug, a leading Filipino investigative journalist and author, is editor-at-large for Rappler. She was editor of Newsbreak magazine, a trailblazer in Philippine investigative journalism.
She has written nine books, the latest of which is Unrequited Love: Duterte’s Embrace of China co-written with Camille Elemia. Before that, she wrote Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won its Maritime Case against China. It won the National Book Award and was translated into Vietnamese.
Marites has a degree in A.B. Broadcast Communication from the University of the Philippines and a diploma in world politics from the London School of Economics. She was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and a recipient of fellowships from the University of San Diego in California—the Pacific Leadership Fellow; the Rockefeller Foundation Writing Fellowship in Bellagio Center, Lago di Como, Italy; the International House in Tokyo—the Asia Leadership Fellow Program; the Australian National University, University of Kyoto and the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.