Closing Keynote with National Security Advisor Eduardo Oban | Manila Strategy Forum 2026

Mr. Gregory Odi, director of Southeast Asia program and Asia Maritime, >> excellencies of the diplomatic corp, officials and representatives from the Philippine National Government Agency, business and industry leaders, members of the academ, panelists and participants of the strategy forum. Ladies and gentlemen, a present. Over the past two years, we have examined the Indo-Pacific through many lenses. maritime security, the evolving international order, economic resilience, technology, infrastructure and regional cooperation. Together they reveal one absolute reality. The character of strategic competition has fundamentally changed. The boundaries that once separated defense, economics, technology, diplomacy, and information are rarely disappearing. Today, a cyber attack can disrupt critical infrastructure. This information can shape public perception before governments can respond. Economic dependencies can be pick up instruments of strategic pressure. Security today is no longer confined to one domain. It has become an interconnected environment where developments in one arena immediately shake outcomes in another. That is why rethinking today's threats also requires the thinking sovereign itself. allowing to offer one central proposition is after national security is preserving a nation's freedom to choose his own future. That freedom is what we call strategic space. the sovereign ability of a nation to make independent decisions, exercise its local rights, protect its interests, shape its own narrative, and choose its partnerships without undue external pressure. Today, that space is increasingly oppressed, not through invasion alone, but through persistent worship. As this framework illustrates, pressure accumulates gradually, incremental, deniable and deliberate attempt below the threshold of of the veterinal war. Its objective is not immediate hogquest, but a steady narrowing of our nation's freedom of action until resistance becomes increasingly costly. This is what we mean by strategic space compression. The gradual erosion of sovereigny choices across across multiple domains maritime, cyber, economic, technological, legal, diplomatic and information. A strategic competition today is no longer simply about control. It is about constraining a nation's ability to decide and act independently long before conflict ever begins. There is another defining feature of today's strategic environment. Speed. The pace of coercion has accelerated dramatically. Cyber intrusions unfold in minutes. Disinformation spreads within hours. Economic pressure ripples across markets and supply chains almost instantly. Our institutions of operate on a different timeline. Democracies deliberate. Governments coordinate. Partnerships are built through consultation and trust. These are enduring strengths of open societies. But they are not always fast. Business leader Jack Welch captured this challenge well. If the external speed of change exceeds the internal speed, then the end is there. This is the emerging contest in the Indo-Pacific. The velocity of coercion versus the velocity of cooperation. Resilience therefore is measured not only by our ability to recover from destruction. But fire out quickly with a coordinate, design and act before coercion B shapes of the strategic environment. If strategic competition seeks to compress strategic space, the Philippine response is to expand it and create more room for sovereign decision making. We do so by strengthening resilient institutions, building credible defense capabilities, securing our digital and economic foundations, and adopting a whole of nation approach to national security. Our national security policy and national security strategy recognize that resilience is built through coordinated action across the private sectors, local governments, academia, civil society and our communities. The strategic autonomy is never isolation. It is our capacity to make sovereign decisions because that capacity is drawn from resilient institutions, trusted partnerships and credible strategic options. Ultimately, resilience is about preserving our freedom of action despite sustained strategic pressure across every domain. Partnerships are among the most powerful ways sovereign nations expand strategic space. This year the Philippines marked 75 years of mutual defense stream then 80 years of diplomatic relations with the United States. A partnership that has evolved from a traditional defense alliance into a broader cooperation in maritime security, cyber security, critical infrastructure, emerging technologies, supply chain, disaster resilience and economic security. At the same time, the Philippines continues cooperation with Chi allies, regional partners, Asan neighbors, and likeminded democracies across the EDOC. Together with these partnerships strengthen interoperability, diversified strategic options and of course a rulesbased regional order where sovereignty is respected and cooperation remains possible despite strategic competition. In today's Pacific partnerships are strategic multipliers that preserve sovereign choice. October is strategic space compression more evident for the Philippines that in the west Philippines. Every day our coast guard, our armed forces and our fisher fall exercise total rights on behalf of the Filipino people in waters where seeks to alter beh without crossing the threshold of conventional culture. The Philippine response has remained steady. We defend our sovereign king, sovereign rights and jurisdiction through peaceful, lawful and responsible action. Our position remains firmly accurate on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas and his 2016 South China Sea Arbit continues to affirm that maritime rights are governed by international growth and not by coercion. We have learned that transparency is itself a form of deterrence. In the west Philippines razo corion thrives on ambiquity and disinformation. The Philippines has answered with strategic transparency documenting incidents releasing verifiable evidence and exposing unover actions in real time. This is generics my exposure. Assertive transparency is a velocity instrument. It allows us to respond to gray coercion at the tempo at which it is applied. Deny ambiquity before it becomes information or deny. It is the clearest example Philippine response that matches the pace of persistent orgy. This perspective also shapes the Philippines Asan J under the theme navigating our future together. Asan faces this moment amid growing sufficially interconnected security challenges. L nation can address today's interconnected security challenges alone. For the Philippines, ASEAN centrality is measured by its appealing to deliver meaningful cooperation with it where it matters most. That means strengthening regional ordination, strengthening the preparedness across critical sectors and responding collectively to challenges. In today's strategic environment, the strength of Asan will depend on tactic together with purpose and speed. Technology has become a fidget domain in its own right. artificial intelligence, cyber security, digital infrastructure, space technologies, semiconductors and data are no longer simply engines of economic growth. They have become instruments of national power that shape both competitiveness and security. As technology creates extraordinary opportunities, it also creates two hordes of strategic vulnerability. Critical technologies, digital networks and data can be exploited to influence decisions, disrupt essential services, compromise critical infrastructure, and achieve strategic objectives without firing a single shot. Our challenge therefore is to ensure the technology strengthens our strategic autonomy. Supply chains, energy systems, food security, critical minerals, ors, telecommunications and financial structure have become strategic assets. When these become overly concentrated or vulnerable to destruction, they limit the choices available to governments during crisis or competition. For the Philippines, the CDX is guildy an economy that is open, diversified, and prepared because a resilient economy expands our strategic space by preserving our ability to make independent national decisions. Allow me to bring these ideas together through the Philippines resilience ecosystem. This framework shows how the Philippines expands it strategic space. It be it begins with a strong domestic foundation, resilient institutions, capable people, Gabi security and credible defense. These are reinforced by trusted alliances, regional partnerships and the information, legal, diplomatic and technological networks that strengthen our strategic position. Resilience is a whole of nation and the whole of partnership effort that preserves our sovereign freedom of action. As we conclude this score, allow me to leave first strategic priority. Strengthen strategic awareness and force. In today's Indo-Pacific, coercion often decates long before conflict becomes visible. We must be able to detect emerging risks early across multip multiple domains. Strategic awareness gives governments and societies the ability to anticipate pressure and preserve the strategic space. Second, strengthen strategic capability, build resilient executions, credible defense, secure infrastructure, innovation and diversified supply chains. Capability creates options and options preserve strategic autonomy. Third, deepen strategic trust, strengthen interoperability, the information share and sustain cooperation with domestic and international partners. Awareness helps us see the challenges ahead. Capability prepares us to meet them. Trust allows us to face them and together they strengthen our nation's ability to protect his interests and shape its future. Ladies and gentlemen, the Indo-Pacific is entering a period that will demand disturb as much as strength, cooperation as much as competition, and resilience as much as resolve. The strategic choice before us is becoming increasingly clear. We can allow persistent coercion to narrow the choices available to sovereign states or we can strengthen institutions, partnerships, technologies and regional mechanisms that expand those choices. regional vessel is future will through trust and practical cooperation and a shared commitment to a regional order where every nation can pursue peace, security and prosperity with dignity and confidence. As ASA chair, as a maritime democracy, and as a committed member of the international community, the Philippines will continue working with partners across the Indo-Pacific to strengthen regional stability and deep meaningful cooperation. Allow me to end where I began. Our strategic challenge is not simply resisting or it is ensuring that dependencies whether deliberately exploited by adversaries or inadvertently created through global inter interdependence do not constrain our strategic choices or diminish our strategic freedom of action. The true measure of national security is how effectively we safeguard the strategic space within which nations can continue to act freely, globally and confidently. We the Filipino people will continue to do our part. The future of the hypoc will be determined by whether cooperation continues to outpace, whether resilience grows faster than vulnerability and whether sovereign choice remains stronger than the strategic pressure. As the Philippines assumed its role as ASEAN chair and continues working with partners across street, we remain committed to helping shape a future that is open, secure, inclusive, and rules based. That is the future we must navigate. And this we all to do together. fight. >> Well, thank you so much for such a uh strong and I think uh poignant close to our two-day forum here. Uh thanks all of you. Uh both of you were still here and know throughout the two days. We have the 700 attendees. We'll have to figure out exactly the number, but it was certainly bigger than last few and so we'll see how big number three. Um, I'd like to thank its again for their support maybe. I'd also really again like to thank our team at CSIS, the team at at Research Service at our park Philippines and the fantastic team at the Slayer made all of this possible. And if you missed anything, I'm gonna like to let other people know. Said remember that video is all the same. A lot of days are going to be online on CF website and on YouTube. I did that. Uh I think this I think I report to formally close the second annual military