Why open democracies like the Philippines struggle against information warfare

THE most effective foreign influence operations are rarely built on espionage alone.

- By Katrina Moore, Ibrahim Jafar, and Himler Wilhelm

They thrive in governance vacuums, regulatory blind spots, elite dependency networks, and fragmented information environments.

This is the uncomfortable reality behind the growing debate surrounding China’s United Front Work (UFW) activities in Southeast Asia. The issue is no longer whether Beijing conducts influence operations abroad. The serious matter is why democratic systems remain particularly vulnerable to them.

The Philippines sits near the center of that discussion.

Unlike conventional hard power projection, UFW activity operates through relationships rather than coercion. Its objective is not territorial conquest in the traditional sense, but strategic conditioning: shaping the political, economic, and informational environment of another country until resistance to Beijing’s interests becomes fragmented, politically costly, or socially exhausting.

This strategy works best in democracies where openness itself can be leveraged as infrastructure.

In the Philippine context, several sectors have emerged as recurring influence vectors: diaspora-linked civic organizations, business federations, educational engagements, local media ecosystems, and political patronage networks. None of these sectors are inherently illegitimate. In fact, most perform lawful and often socially beneficial functions. That distinction matters because serious analysis requires separating legitimate engagement from potential political exploitation.