COMMENTARY:The Philippines has long sought a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea, with the aim of averting conflict in these waters. But as tensions with China rise, it looks unlikely to succeed. Manila is shifting toward other means of defending its maritime interests.

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. warned that Chinese scholars’ claim of Batanes, the Philippines’ northernmost province, as part of China is a prelude to its wider maritime ambitions.

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.