Peace advocate and former diplomat Adolfo Cuizon Paglinawan, Vice President for Internal Affairs of the Asian Century Philippines Institute for Strategic Studies Inc., underscored the urgent need for the Philippines to avoid entanglement in conflicts between global powers.
Paglinawan, who once served as ambassador under former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez and as press attaché at the Philippine Embassy in Washington, D.C., was guest speaker at the “No to War: A Media Forum on Peace in Asia” held at the Grand Men Seng Hotel on Friday.
“We came to Davao City to manifest our continuing caravan for peace, for posterity ng Pilipinas,” he told Edge Davao.
Paglinawan recalled that their movement began in 2023 in Tuguegarao, Cagayan, when local leaders opposed plans to designate the province as a site for U.S. military facilities under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA).
Since then, the group has held activities in Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, and Cagayan province, consistently voicing opposition to foreign military buildup in the Philippines.
Paglinawan argued that war “will not solve any of the present problems we have as a country.”
He stressed that it would be unjust to expose future generations to conflict while neighboring ASEAN countries prioritize economic growth and prosperity.
“We believe that war will not solve any of the present problems that we have in this country. We believed that it would be entirely unjust for the Filipino people particularly the incoming generations to be exposed to the elements of war at that time when our country is being left behind by other ASEAN countries because they have chosen economics, prosperity, while we have be in alliance with the Americans in possibly being a proxy to war against China over Taiwan,” he said.
“We don’t see any justification or rhetoric even by the President of the Philippines, who started in a statement through his AFP Chief of Staff, Gen. Romero Brawner, calling for preparations in case of war in Taiwan. We believe this issue with Taiwan is a problem and is confined to China, and there is nothing we can do about it, and there is nothing good that could come out about it,” he said.
Paglinawan further urged the Philippines to abide by international law, instead of serving what he described as U.S. strategic interests in the region.
He cited recent incidents, such as the presence of a Philippine Coast Guard vessel BRP Suluan near Scarborough Shoal, as examples of escalating tensions.
“Real change, as former President Rodrigo Duterte once said, is what the country needs. But what we see now is not real change, but loose change, barya,” he remarked.
The forum was organized by the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute, a think-tank engaged in governance, peace, and policy research, which also serves as a reviewer for initiatives such as the Bangsamoro peace process and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
