Talk is cheap. We should have learned that lesson yesterday. Our verbosity alone will not drive China’s ships away from our exclusive economic zone. Words must be backed up by a coherent strategy and determined responses that imposes costs on them. Recovering control of our waters, after it was given up by the Duterte administration before, will require a long, arduous and incremental campaign, one island at a time, one feature at a time, one mission at a time.

For the Philippines, the task is not simply to remember the Award. It is to operationalise it through law, practice, diplomacy, and sustained presence. The real anniversary question is not whether Manila won in 2016, but whether it can convert that victory into enduring maritime resilience, regional leadership, and legal resistance in the face of power.That is the unfinished work of the Award.

For fishermen in Zambales, the Philippines’ legal victory at the Arbitral Tribunal has not translated into greater access. “The 2016 ruling may have mattered at the top level, but we don’t feel it when we’re out at sea,” said Leonardo Cuaresma, who’s been fishing at Bajo de Masinloc for almost five decades and president of the New Masinloc Fishermen Association.