USA losing influence across the Pacific (UPDATED 27th JULY)
Sun 2:10 pm +00:00, 26 Jul 2026Asia DESTROYS US Pacific Hegemony. End of Alliances | Prof. Jomo Kwame Sundaram
While the US is busy destroying itself in Eastern Europe and West Asia, East Asia, too, is busy preparing for countering US warmongering. But not the way you think. South East Asia is engaged in its own cat and mouse game with the hegemon.
THE FEEL OF EVENTS IN MANILA
Strangely I was staying in the hotel in Manila, where the Asean meetings took place, and where Lavrov met up with Rubio. The rate I paid did seem a lot more expensive than normal! Security was minimal – just the usual frisk at the door and metal detector. Three Police officers checking and a dog!
The one comment I made was that there was no visible or audible input in the media from Bong Bong Marcos the President. He seemed to be nowhere in the proceedings despite hosting them.
Locals I know who see him occasionally – government drivers for example – say that he looks unwell these days, a shadow of his former self when first elected. He is extremely unpopular for selling the country out to the USA and the corporations, and not dealing with the outrageous level of corruption. Inflation is rampant and so are tax rises. Pay is being swallowed up to nothing. People look depressed, compared to in the past.
Bong Bong is as nothing compared to his parents who were formidable operators. They resisted the US takeover of the Philippines in the 1960s and 1970s and paid the price with enforced political removal from the country and Ferdinand developing cancer. The Marcos’ were blamed for corruption ever since but it was the Aquinos and later Presidents like Macapagal who signed away the country’s natural resources, and linked the Peso to the US$.
Bong Bong seemed to have the opposite approach to his parents – and has been the biggest US Corporate sell-out yet known, just as Asia as a whole seems ready to move on from the American Century, and find a new pathway.
Bong Bong pictured only four years ago. Bong Bong not looking too well these days according to people I know who see him, compared to how he was pre-Presidency which started exactly four years ago. The pictures tell the same story, and his decline is not just a temporary illness but the ongoing effects of his being a President unsuited to the role.
Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara is a key opponent of Marcos. She is currently suffering an impeachment trial in the Senate, a lawfare assault. If she survives she will landslide against Bong Bong in the Presidential elections, as the people want to go back to opposing the takeover by US corporations and military, and raise living standards for ordinary Filipinos.
She would not want a war with China as the US seems keen to get going. Japan is probably militarily a more significant opponent of China than the US is now, with a highly advanced drone programme, for example. The reputation of the US under Trump has taken a massive dive, and will not recover. The world wants to move on from western empires.
UPDATE – 27th July 2026
Not Marcos’ paid audience at his State Of The Nation address today , however. US money still favoured over Chinese. Duterte played it down the middle, and avoided handing over the country to US hegemonic aims. BongBong is bought and paid for.
His voice sounds strong but doesn’t vary its pitch and pace. His overactive right hand betrays his weakness. It’s a smooth performance but not one that grabs the wider public’s support, which has already had enough of him.
