LAST Saturday, the militaries of the Philippines, the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand carried out joint maneuvers in the Philippines' exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

The Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity demonstrated "a collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific," the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said.

The massive show of solidarity by Manila's allies comes at a time when China is stepping up its strategy of aggressively asserting its dominance in the South China Sea. It continues to go down this path despite a 2016 arbitral ruling that its claim to almost the entire waterway has no legal basis.

It was no coincidence that Chinese air and naval forces were also conducting their own drills in the South China Sea on Saturday. It included patrols around Bajo de Masinloc or Scarborough Shoal, which is well within the country's EEZ and is one of the flashpoints in the ongoing row between Manila and Beijing.

The People's Liberation Army said in a statement that it's keeping "a high degree of vigilance, resolutely defending national sovereignty, security and maritime rights and interests, [and] are firm in maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea."

Just hours earlier, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had sat with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in New York to discuss ways to prevent a further surge of hostilities in the South China Sea.

Blinken raised China's "dangerous and destabilizing actions" in the disputed waters, and Wang countered that "the US should not always stir up trouble in the South China Sea and should not undermine the efforts of regional countries to maintain peace and stability."

If anything, the repartee underlined the huge gulf of differences that must be overcome to de-escalate tensions in the Indo-Pacific,

Last May, Blinken vowed that the US commitment to defend the Philippines against an armed attack was "ironclad." Washington, so far, has kept its word. As early as 2022, when President Ferdinand Marcos visited the White House, President Joe Biden announced that the US and the Philippines were restructuring their alliance "to meet emerging challenges while routinizing joint planning and improving interoperability."

And in July, the Biden administration announced an additional $500 million of aid to the Philippines to speed up the modernization of the armed forces and upgrade selected local bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement to boost the country's capability to respond to external threats.

While the US commitment is welcome, President Marcos felt it was time to expand the country's circle of security partners.

With the communist insurgency in the country largely contained, the president has ordered the military to shift its focus to external defense as China's intrusions in the West Philippine Sea became more frequent and serious.

The shift aligns with the US strategy to build an arc of alliances in the Indo-Pacific to curb China's hegemonic ambitions.

The Philippines has since signed defense pacts with Australia and Japan and is considering a similar agreement with France.

It has also intensified joint maneuvers with its allies this year, the most recent being last Saturday's Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity.

Beijing has warned Manila that cozying up to the US and other Western superpowers was provocative and a threat to regional security. "To bundle the Philippines into the chariots of geopolitical strife will seriously harm Philippine national interests and endanger regional peace and stability," it said.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro defended Manila's alliance-building initiative. "Terming these cooperative activities with like-minded nations as a containment or a provocation is disinformation and evidence of paranoia of a closed political system," he said. "The ultimate intent is to get what they want by the threat or the use of force. This we cannot allow to continue."

Philippine actions to defend its EEZ "can, in no way, be termed by any sane person as a provocation," Teodoro said.

So far, the Philippines has resisted China's provocations to initiate a fight, and that's laudable.

Still, it needs a stronger shield of deterrence. And that is what alliances provide.