The Security Council gambit

There is a famous horseshoe-shaped table in New York City where the fate of global war, peace and international law is decided and for five decades, the world’s superpowers have dominated it. Behind closed doors, a chess game is being played and as the Philippines entered the final stretch of its campaign for a 2027-2028 UN Security Council seat, it begs the question: why does a non-permanent seat with no veto power matter so much?

Most of us know that five superpowers run the UN Security Council, and they do so with an iron fist and a veto stamp. As for the 10 remaining seats? It’s a scramble. With the Philippines on the ballot, looking into the mechanics of this race reveals that these temporary seats aren’t just symbolic; they are the ultimate geopolitical leverage. The question, however, is why would a country spend years of diplomatic capital and millions of dollars to campaign for a job that lasts only 24 months, offers no veto power and forces you to take sides in ruthless global conflicts?

For the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the UN Security Council bid wasn’t just a prestigious diplomatic project; it was the structural anchor of his entire foreign policy strategy. After all, he is the nation’s chief foreign policy architect. But why is this move so critical?

After the 2022 elections, the Philippines took a sharp turn and shifted the country’s position from Beijing and instead poured heavily into international alliances. The bid for the UNSC was the key necessary to fulfill that strategy, simply because it could have been the ultimate shield for the West Philippine Sea since the Philippines cannot match China’s military budget or naval fleet. Hoping against hope perhaps, one could say the Philippines’ primary weapon would have been international law, specifically the 2016 arbitral ruling based on the UNCLOS so that, by securing a seat, the country could then place itself at the absolute center of global international law enforcement and through it have global conversations about the freedom of navigation and the rules-based international order.

Most of all, it could have given the Philippines full attention and proper recognition among superpowers who would then see the cause from across the table. You get the picture now? In addition to this, the Marcos administration also wanted to ensure that its security is global and not just bilateral. It must have been quite a challenge for Marcos Jr. to “re-brand” the Philippines on the world stage, considering the controversial war on drugs and human rights issues, and serving on the UNSC gives the country a direct voice and vote on global peace and security matters.

For the first time ever, Kyrgyzstan won a seat in the UNSC in a dramatic show of voting around the iconic horseshoe table. The other four countries who won seats at the United Nations Security Council for 2027-2028 were Portugal, Austria, Zimbabwe and Trinidad and Tobago. Kyrgyzstan secured the Asia-Pacific seat after defeating the Philippines in four rounds of voting. This marked a historical milestone for Kyrgyzstan, which will serve on the Security Council for the first time since joining the United Nations in 1992.

Considering that the Philippines often highlights the Bangsamoro peace process as its capability to build and maintain peace in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs acknowledged the result of the election and expressed respect for the UN member-states. The first time the Philippines became a member of the Security Council was in 1957 during the time of Carlos P. Romulo, who had served as president of the UN General Assembly in 1949 and was the country’s first representative to the Council. He took up the role again from 1980 to 1981 when the Philippines won its third term as a non-permanent member. During his term, issues on territorial disputes were among the matters tackled.

Despite the loss where Manila failed to secure the required two-thirds majority, the Philippines promised to continue working with all nations for peace, stability, sustainable development and rules-based international order. The United  Nations Security Council consists of 15 member-states, with China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States serving as permanent members.

In the time of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and under her chairmanship, the Security Council successfully achieved a unanimous adoption of two critical resolutions – one that called on all states to prohibit by law and prevent the incitement to commit terrorist acts and to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism and another to strengthen the Security Council’s role in the prevention of armed conflict, placing a particular emphasis on Africa.

The Philippines lost the Asia-Pacific seat to Kyrgyzstan in a punishing four round secret ballot with 142 to 49 votes in the end. What then should Filipinos see from the standpoint of the nation’s global standing moving forward? In a four-round secret ballot, Kyrgyzstan walked away with a Security Council seat that left the Philippines on the outside looking in, considering that the Marcos Jr. administration built its foreign policy strategy around internationalizing our security and praying that a rules based international order would rally behind us. But in the quiet corners of global diplomacy, the secret ballot proved otherwise.

This leaves us Filipinos with a truth we cannot ignore and that is realizing the fact that international sympathy is not a security strategy after all. In the end, the greatest defense of our sovereignty is something we simply cannot outsource. It begins and ends with us here, at home.

At this point, the halls of the UN have cleared and the secret ballots have been ripped to shreds. The famous horseshoe table has new occupants and the dream of the Philippines to secure a fifth term in the UNSC is gone. This is a big reality check for Filipinos – a sting but also a clarifying moment where we need to ask ourselves, have we been so focused on foreign sympathy that we forgot how to build on internal strength? Something to think about as true geological power is not given. It is built.