Manila Chairs ASEAN in 2026. The Code of Conduct Draft May Still Bury The Hague Ruling.

The Philippines took the ASEAN chair on January 1 under the theme 'Navigating Our Future, Together,' and the hardest test of that slogan is whether Manila can keep the 2016 arbitral award inside a Code of Conduct text that Beijing has spent ten years pretending does not exist. Holding the gavel does not mean holding the pen, and the draft language that ends up in front of foreign ministers this year will decide whether the ruling stays a regional anchor or shrinks into a Philippine talking point.

Manila is being asked, by partners who would rather not say it out loud, to stop being the awkward one in the room.

Why the chair country is not in full control

The Code of Conduct talks have dragged since 2002, restarted in earnest in 2017, and missed every internal deadline since. The chair sets agendas and hosts ceremonies, but the text is negotiated by all ten members plus China, and consensus has become a tool for the most cautious capital in the room to slow anything it dislikes.

Several ASEAN members have an obvious interest in a finished document, even a weak one, that locks in basic rules on incidents at sea and keeps Chinese investment flowing into nickel, rail, and industrial parks. The quiet calculation in more than one capital is that a code without the arbitral award is still better than another four years of standoffs at Ayungin and Bajo de Masinloc.

What Manila loses if the ruling drops out

The 2016 award is the only piece of paper that calls the nine-dash line what it is, which is unlawful under UNCLOS. Strip it from the regional text and the Philippines is left arguing the ruling bilaterally against a counterparty that treats the tribunal as if it never happened.

Filipino fisherfolk groups have been blunt for years that the ruling did not put a single extra peso in the boat, and they are right. But the ruling is what gives the Coast Guard a legal spine when it escorts a resupply to Ayungin, and it is what lets Manila call militia ramming what it is in front of foreign ministries. A Code of Conduct that quietly retires the award turns those incidents back into he-said-she-said.

The Vietnam question

Hanoi is the other capital watching this draft closely, and the June 1, 2026 elevation of Philippines-Vietnam ties to an Enhanced Strategic Partnership, sealed during To Lam's state visit to Manila with commitments on defense, trade, and people-to-people cooperation, was supposed to give Manila a partner with skin in the game. Vietnam has its own overlapping claims, its own fishing boats rammed off the Paracels, and a long habit of letting Manila take the diplomatic hits while it negotiates quietly with Beijing on the side.

The Enhanced Strategic Partnership is also a tier below the comprehensive strategic partnership Hanoi reserves for its closest partners, including China itself. That ceiling matters when the Code of Conduct text gets ugly, because it tells you how far Vietnam is willing to walk with Manila before pulling back. The partnership only matters inside the negotiating room if Hanoi is willing to refuse a text that omits the arbitral ruling, and that is a harder ask than a signing ceremony.

What the 2026 Summit will actually decide

The summit will not produce a finished Code of Conduct. It will produce a framework text, a possible signing moment, and a communique that either names the arbitral ruling or does not. That single editorial choice is the whole game.

Manila's negotiators have two jobs between now and then: get the award referenced in the preamble, or get enough ASEAN partners to refuse a text that omits it. Neither is going easily. Fisherfolk in Zambales and Palawan who have lost seasons to Chinese militia harassment will lose more if the bloc signs a paper that pretends the last ten years of jurisprudence never happened, and the bill for that compromise lands on their boats first.