Duterte's Shadow at the Root of Today's China Problem

Whichever way one may look at it, in today’s problems related to fraud, tax evasion, offshore gaming, territorial disputes, among many other issues, there is a shade of yesterday’s Duterte in them.

The ongoing diplomatic spat between Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gilberto "Gibo" Teodoro Jr. and the Chinese Embassy in Manila has crossed well beyond traditional geopolitical posturing. In a blistering public statement, Secretary Teodoro accused the Chinese Embassy of effectively acting as a "PR firm" for businessman Yang Jianxin—better known by his fraudulently acquired Filipino name, Tony Yang—and covering up for illicit activities within Philippine borders.

The embassy fired back, labeling Teodoro's claims "absurd" and framing their intervention as routine protection for Chinese nationals. Yet, behind this heated exchanges over law enforcement operations lies a deeper, systemic issue that points directly to the previous administration. The current friction with Beijing, and the web of national security vulnerabilities unraveling before Congressional committees, is not merely a contemporary geopolitical clash. It is the direct harvest of the foreign and domestic policies sown under President Rodrigo Duterte.

The Anatomy of the Escalation

The immediate catalyst for the DND's sharply worded rebuke was a major inter-agency raid on Philippine Sanjia Steel Corp. in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental. Law enforcement, led by the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC), National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and military personnel, uncovered labor, immigration, and public safety violations, leading to the detention of nearly 70 Chinese nationals. Authorities linked the operation directly to Tony Yang.

When Beijing’s diplomatic mission issued statements criticizing the Philippine government's handling of the raid, Secretary Teodoro and PAOCC Executive Director Benjamin Acorda Jr. forcefully called out the embassy for overstepping diplomatic decorum. Teodoro pointedly observed that no foreign embassy in Philippine history has displayed such brazen excess in attempting to lecture host authorities on the lawful enforcement of domestic laws.

However, the Sanjia Steel raid is merely one piece of a vastly larger puzzle uncovered by months of joint Senate and House Quad-Committee investigations. Legislative hearings have meticulously documented how figures like former Bamban Mayor Alice Guo (Guo Hua Ping) and Tony Yang operated with near impunity, constructing shadow economies built on fraudulent civil registries, illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs), tax evasion, and land acquisition.

The Duterte Connection: Institutional Permeability

To understand how fake identities and unchecked foreign-backed enterprises proliferated to this degree, one must trace the timeline back to 2016. Under the Duterte administration, the Philippines underwent a radical pivot toward Beijing. In exchange for promised infrastructure investments, Manila adopted a policy of appeasement in the West Philippine Sea and opened its doors to a massive influx of mainland Chinese capital—much of it concentrated in the booming POGO sector.

This pivot created a permissive environment where regulatory guardrails were systematically eroded. Fraudulent birth certificates, late registration schemes, and compromised government agencies allowed foreign nationals to infiltrate local governance and strategic commercial assets.

Crucially, Tony Yang is not an isolated actor; he is the older brother of Michael Yang (Yang Hongming), whom Duterte appointed as an official presidential economic adviser. That a foreign national's immediate family could establish expansive commercial footprints while operating under fake Filipino aliases like "Antonio Maestrado Lim" underscores the profound permeability of Philippine institutions during that six-year period.

By treating Beijing's economic actors with uncritical deference, the previous administration allowed parallel networks of organized crime, espionage vulnerabilities, and regulatory evasion to entrench themselves deep within the country's social and economic fabric.

Geopolitics Meets Law Enforcement

What makes today’s national security landscape particularly precarious is how seamlessly domestic criminal networks merge with broader geopolitical friction. The Duterte foreign policy operated on the premise that accommodating Beijing would guarantee stability and economic prosperity. Instead, it left the nation with a compromised law enforcement architecture, compromised territorial integrity, and zero lasting infrastructure windfalls.

The Marcos administration's shift back toward a firm stance on Philippine sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea has naturally angered Beijing. But as Secretary Teodoro’s confrontation demonstrates, Beijing’s assertiveness is no longer confined to maritime borders; it has expanded to defending illicit domestic networks established during the previous administration's relaxed watch. When the Chinese Embassy defends enterprises linked to figures under congressional investigation, it highlights how difficult it is to separate national defense from internal security cleanup.

The Unraveling Legacy

The intense public interest surrounding Alice Guo, Tony Yang, and the broader Quad-Committee probes reflects a national realization: the sovereignty threats facing the Philippines are dual-faceted. They exist on maritime reefs, but they also exist in local registries, steel mills, and unregistered gaming hubs.

Secretary Teodoro’s refusal to allow foreign diplomatic missions to dictate domestic law enforcement is a necessary restoration of national dignity. Yet, as Manila works to dismantle these entrenched syndicates and counter external assertiveness, it must confront the political legacy that enabled this crisis in the first place. Today's diplomatic and security headaches with Beijing are not an overnight anomaly; they are the direct, predictable outcome of six years of institutional compromise—a shadow cast by the Duterte administration that the country is still fighting to step out from.