Manila sent two strikingly different messages to Beijing on October 13. At the Malacanang Palace, a presidential spokeswoman reaffirmed Manila’s commitment to sustaining diplomatic and economic ties with China, saying “China needs the Philippines, and the Philippines needs China”.

That same day, Philippine Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jnr rejected a call for military-to-military communication with China, a move that received public support from the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Teodoro said the policy was not new and that “the proper communications flow is through the Department of Foreign Affairs, not through us”.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr has defended the contrasting messages over China. He argues there is no contradiction between them, insisting that the diplomatic and defence arms of his administration are working towards the same objective through different approaches.

Such conflicting signals raise doubts about the coherence of the Marcos administration. Manila is speaking with two voices on China, but which one is Beijing supposed to believe? While the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has sought a more constructive approach towards China, Manila’s defence establishment has taken a harder line towards Beijing.

A recent example is the controversy surrounding Ambassador Jing Quan’s remark that China could “easily win” if it chose to use force against the Philippines. On October 19, Foreign Secretary Theresa Lazaro summoned him to express “serious concern and strong objection” over his comment, while also emphasising Manila’s willingness to continue dialogue with China through “diplomatic channels and bilateral mechanisms, which preserve space for dialogue and engagement”.

Lazaro has repeatedly expressed a willingness to engage with China. Speaking at the Second Manila Strategy Forum in September, Lazaro said Manila was open to constructive dialogue with China “wherever mutual benefit and sovereign equality allow”.

In contrast, Teodoro has shown little appetite for direct engagement with Beijing. The defence secretary, who was sanctioned by China in June, has publicly said government officials siding with China in border disputes should consider resigning their posts. Meanwhile, the armed forces have accused China of using bilateral communication channels as a cover for its activities in disputed waters.

The differences go far beyond rhetoric. Two maritime arrangements intended to manage tensions with China have also prompted conflicting public accounts from Philippine agencies. The first is a proposed bilateral coastguard cooperation agreement; the second is the rotation and resupply arrangement around the Second Thomas Shoal.

Reports of talks on reviving the coastguard agreement emerged in October 2025, with Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela saying “the Philippine Coast Guard always supports policy direction being headed by the DFA”. However, after Jing said in March that a draft of the agreement was about 95 per cent complete, Tarriela distanced the Philippine coastguard from the deal and denied its involvement in drafting the agreement. The DFA subsequently issued two statements clarifying that joint patrols were not under discussion and that the Philippine Coast Guard was informed of and involved in the talks.

The coastguard’s abrupt shift in position was puzzling enough. More striking was that the DFA publicly contradicted the coastguard’s stance distancing itself from the negotiations. These differing accounts paint a troubling picture of poor inter-agency coordination between Manila’s diplomatic corps and maritime security establishment.

A similar disagreement emerged over the provisional understanding on rotation and resupply missions at the Second Thomas Shoal. Diplomats from both sides reached a provisional understanding on the missions in July 2024, yet two years later Teodoro denied that such an understanding even existed. Meanwhile, the DFA said Lazaro and her team had drafted the agreement and received approval from then-National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano.

The dispute also drew scrutiny from Senators Francis Pangilinan and Risa Hontiveros, who called for an investigation into the arrangement, including its consistency with the 2016 arbitral award. Marcos weighed in on the issue in August, defending the practical purpose of the understanding in preventing maritime incidents while rejecting the notion that it constituted a special arrangement with China.

Beyond mere institutional disagreements between Manila’s diplomatic and security establishment, they also create uncertainty about the consistency of the Marcos administration. Both departments insist they are following the president’s instructions: the DFA to maintain dialogue and engagement, the defence department to remain steadfast in its external operations.

Perhaps Marcos is correct that his diplomatic and security departments are pursuing the same goal with different approaches. It is normal for a government to maintain open dialogue while taking a firm stand in defending its national interests. But what exactly is Manila trying to achieve with China? Emphasising engagement on the one hand and taking a confrontational posture on the other suggests markedly different priorities.

The two departments cannot always present a consistent account of what has been negotiated, who was involved or how agreements should be implemented. This goes beyond differences in approach and raises doubts about the coherence of Manila’s China policy.

When agreements negotiated by the DFA are publicly disavowed by the defence establishment, which Philippine institution can negotiate understandings that will eventually be honoured and carried out? Such inconsistencies erode the diplomatic credibility of the Philippine government.

For Beijing, this adds another layer of uncertainty to an already fraught bilateral relationship with Manila, complicating efforts of crisis management at sea and increasing the risk of more dangerous maritime confrontations between the two countries’ coastguards.

Marcos’ challenge goes beyond choosing between diplomacy and deterrence. It is to repair the fractured intra-agency coordination between his diplomatic and security establishments and ensure these two departments share a coherent and credible policy towards China.

Author: Mengzhen Liu, Assistant Research Fellow of Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance; Guo Ziya, Assistant Research Fellow of Huayang Center for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance. This article was originally published on SCMP, read the original article at: https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3372147/manila-speaks-2-voices-china.