IT was the elephant in the room at the Asean Summit held in Indonesia last week: President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s embrace of the US as the Philippines' big brother, not just as a purported deterrent to perceived Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea, but to be a platform for the US military to defend Taiwan when Beijing invades it.

While of course the development wasn't discussed openly nor even privately among the Asean heads of Asean state and government, at least three of them, through their officials, expressed their worry over the Marcos administration's move — despite the president's denials — to totally align the country with the US, in opposition to China.