What Secretary Teodoro's confrontation with China reminded me about betrayal, courage, faith, and knowing when not to back down
I watched the video of Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. at the Seoul Defense Dialogue several times.
At first, like many Filipinos, I was simply curious. The Philippines and China have been exchanging strong words over the West Philippine Sea for years, so another disagreement between the two countries was hardly surprising.
But this one felt different.
While Secretary Teodoro was speaking about maritime security and the importance of international law, a note was handed to him. According to the organizers, it came from a Chinese military attaché assigned to the Chinese Embassy in Seoul. The note challenged the 2016 arbitral ruling and repeated China's position that it does not accept or recognize the decision.
Secretary Teodoro could have ignored it. He could have folded the paper, placed it on the table, and continued with his prepared remarks.
Instead, he read it.
And when he reached the part saying China did not accept or recognize the arbitral ruling, his answer was almost immediate:
"Of course, because you lost."
I smiled when I heard it.
But after the smile came something else. I felt proud.
Not because I want our country to fight with China. I don't. China is our neighbor. It is a major economic power, and millions of ordinary Chinese people have absolutely nothing to do with the disagreements between our governments. I would rather see our countries prosper together than spend generations treating each other as enemies.
But there was something about that moment that touched me deeply as a Filipino.
Here was the representative of a relatively small country, sitting on an international stage, receiving a message from a representative of one of the most powerful countries in the world. He knew the difference in power. He knew the political consequences of his words.
And yet he answered.
As I watched him holding that small piece of paper, something from my own past suddenly came back to me. I thought about a battle that almost destroyed my company. And I remembered what it feels like when someone bigger than you seems to believe that, sooner or later, you will surrender.
When Being Smaller Begins to Feel Like Being Helpless
I have written before about one of the most painful betrayals I experienced in business.
For years, OneNetworx had a partnership with a non-life insurance company. I will not mention its name because I have reached a point in my life where I no longer want my story to revolve around theirs.
There was a time when I trusted that partnership. We invested money in it. We opened offices. We hired and trained people. We advanced operational expenses. We helped build branches and develop business.
I didn't do those things because somebody forced me. I did them because I believed we were building something together.
That's the painful thing about betrayal. It usually doesn't come from a stranger. A stranger can hurt you, yes. But when someone you trusted hurts you, the wound goes deeper because you're not only grieving what happened. You're grieving what you thought the relationship was.
When our relationship with that company eventually collapsed, everything seemed to happen at once. There were accusations against me that I strongly disputed. There were receivables attributed to me that I believed were grossly inaccurate. There were questions about an insurance agency I had established that I knew I had every right to build. Offices were closed, employees were affected, and OneNetworx was left dealing with consequences that I believed should never have been ours alone to carry.
I tried to explain. I tried to reconcile. I tried to defend myself.
But there comes a point in a conflict when you begin to feel that the other side is no longer listening to understand you. They have already decided what they believe.
That feeling is terrible. You start asking yourself, What else can I say? What else can I show them? What else do they want from me?
And when the institution across from you is much bigger, another thought slowly enters your mind: Can I really fight this?
That was probably one of the loneliest questions I had to ask myself. Because behind me wasn't just my pride. There was a company. There were employees. There were families. There were offices. There were obligations. There was the reputation I had spent decades building. And there was a frightening amount of money involved.
To keep the company alive in the aftermath, I had to take on obligations I never imagined I would carry. There were moments when I wondered whether the company I had spent years building would survive.
That is why watching Secretary Teodoro brought back emotions I thought I had already buried. Because I remembered what it was like to feel small. And I remembered how dangerous it is when being small begins to make you believe that you are powerless.
Sometimes the Bigger Side Doesn't Have to Defeat You
This is something I learned the hard way.
When a much larger organization is fighting a smaller business, it doesn't always need to destroy that business outright. Sometimes it only needs to outlast it.
The larger organization has employees who go home at five. The entrepreneur goes home carrying the problem. The corporation has departments. The entrepreneur has sleepless nights. The corporation has lawyers whose job is to handle disputes. The entrepreneur pays lawyers using money that could have paid salaries, rent, suppliers, or invested in growth. The corporation can treat a dispute as another file. For the entrepreneur, that file can contain his life's work.
That's the imbalance people don't always see. And perhaps the most dangerous weapon in that imbalance isn't money.
It's exhaustion.
You become tired of explaining yourself. Tired of defending your name. Tired of looking at documents. Tired of meetings. Tired of hearing accusations. Tired of waking up angry.
Eventually, the temptation isn't to admit that the other side is right. You simply want the pain to stop.
And maybe that's what the bigger side is waiting for. For you to become tired enough to say:
Bahala na.
Ayoko na.
Let them have it.
I came dangerously close to allowing my anger and exhaustion to consume me. But somewhere inside me there was also a stubborn voice saying:
No.
Not because I believed I was more powerful. I knew I wasn't. Not because I knew exactly how everything would end. I didn't.
But because surrendering to something I believed was wrong would have meant living with another kind of pain — the pain of knowing that I abandoned myself simply because the other side was bigger.
Years later, I wrote a sentence to our former business partner that still means something to me today:
"Do not mistake my patience and restraint for weakness."
When I watched Secretary Teodoro in Seoul, that sentence came back to me.
Forgiveness Is Not the Same as Surrender
This is where my understanding of the experience has changed.
There was a time when I wanted revenge. I won't pretend otherwise. I wanted to fight everyone I believed had participated in what happened. I wanted to expose people. I wanted them to experience the pain they had caused me, my company, and my employees.
I was hurt, and hurt people sometimes imagine that healing will come when the people who wounded them finally hurt too.
But it didn't bring me peace. The anger followed me everywhere. I brought it home. I brought it to work. I brought it to bed. Sometimes I even brought it into my prayers.
Eventually, my relationship with God forced me to confront something uncomfortable. I kept asking God to change my circumstances. Perhaps God was also trying to change me.
So I began surrendering the anger. Not overnight. I wish faith worked that easily. There were days when I thought I had already forgiven, only to feel the anger return when something reminded me of what happened. So I prayed again. And again.
Little by little, I began to understand that surrendering my anger to God did not require me to surrender my principles.
That distinction changed me.
Forgiveness does not require you to say that what happened was right. It does not require you to abandon the truth as you know it. It does not mean you cannot defend your reputation. It does not mean you cannot ask for accountability. It does not mean allowing someone to hurt your people again. And it certainly does not mean allowing a more powerful person to bully you simply because you have chosen peace.
You can forgive someone and still say:
No. This far, but no farther.
Perhaps that is why Secretary Teodoro's response affected me differently today than it would have several years ago. Years ago, I might have admired only the fight. Today, I admire the courage to stand.
There is a difference.
Peace Without Courage Is Sometimes Just Fear Wearing Better Clothes
I believe in peace. I believe in forgiveness. I believe in diplomacy. I believe businesses should resolve disagreements professionally whenever possible. And as a Filipino, I sincerely hope our country's disagreements with China can be managed peacefully.
War benefits very few ordinary people. The Filipino fisherman trying to feed his family and the ordinary Chinese father trying to feed his are probably more alike than different.
But wanting peace should never require pretending that disagreements don't exist. China continues to reject the 2016 arbitral ruling. The Philippines continues to regard that ruling as legally binding and central to its maritime rights. That disagreement cannot be erased simply because talking about it is uncomfortable.
Secretary Teodoro himself described what he saw in the note incident as "coercion, bullying and aggression."
Whether people agree with his tone or not, the moment raises a question much larger than that piece of paper: What does a smaller country do when confronted by a much stronger one?
It is strangely similar to a question many ordinary people eventually face.
What do you do when your employer is more powerful than you? When your client is bigger than your company? When your business partner has more resources? When someone wealthy threatens you? When somebody believes your silence can be purchased with fear?
I used to think there were only two choices. Fight or surrender.
My experience taught me there is another.
Stand.
Standing doesn't always require shouting. Sometimes standing means producing the documents. Sometimes it means saying no. Sometimes it means going to court. Sometimes it means walking away from money. Sometimes it means protecting your employees even when doing so costs you personally. Sometimes it means refusing to retaliate even when you have the opportunity.
And sometimes standing means forgiving the person who hurt you while making absolutely certain that they can never hurt you in the same way again.
There is strength in that kind of peace. Because peace chosen from courage is very different from peace chosen from fear.
The Part of the Story I Didn't Understand Until Later
When our partnership collapsed, I thought the story was about what we lost.
The money. The offices. The business. The relationships. The reputation I felt had been damaged.
For a long time, those were the things I counted.
But perhaps I was counting the wrong things.
Because OneNetworx survived. We rebuilt. People stayed. New people came. New businesses emerged. New opportunities appeared.
And slowly, almost without noticing it, I stopped waking up every morning thinking about the people I believed had betrayed me.
That may sound like a small thing. For me, it was enormous. Because I realized they no longer owned space inside me.
I could remember without wanting revenge. I could defend myself without hatred. I could tell the story without needing to destroy the other side.
And I could finally look at that painful chapter and say:
You hurt me. You hurt my business. But you did not get to decide what happened to my life afterward.
Perhaps that is why I can write this article without even mentioning their name. There was a time when I wanted everyone to know who they were. Today, I would rather people understand who I became because of what happened.
That is more important.
To Anyone Standing Before Their Own Giant
Maybe your giant isn't a country. Maybe it isn't even a corporation.
Maybe it's debt. Maybe it's a powerful customer who refuses to pay you. Maybe it's a partner who betrayed you. Maybe somebody has accused you of something you didn't do. Maybe your business is failing and everyone around you seems stronger, richer, luckier, and more successful.
Or maybe you're simply exhausted.
I know that feeling.
There were days during my own battle when I didn't feel brave. There were days when I was angry. There were days when I wanted revenge. There were days when I wondered whether continuing was worth it.
And yet here I am.
Not because I won every battle. I didn't. Not because every wound disappeared. Some scars stay.
I am here because somewhere along the way I learned that courage isn't always about defeating the giant standing in front of you. Sometimes courage is refusing to let the giant change the person standing inside you.
Watching Secretary Teodoro hold that little piece of paper reminded me of that.
The Philippines is not China. We do not have China's size, wealth, population, or military power.
But perhaps dignity was never supposed to depend on size.
The same is true in business. The same is true in life.
You can be the smaller company and still be right. You can be the weaker party and still deserve fairness. You can forgive and still demand accountability. You can choose peace without surrendering your dignity. And you can place your anger in God's hands without handing your courage to the person who hurt you.
That last lesson took me years to understand.
I used to pray for God to defeat the people I believed had wronged me. Today, my prayer is different. I pray for the wisdom to know when to speak and when to remain silent. When to fight and when to walk away. When to hold on and when to let go.
And when something truly worth defending is placed in front of me, I pray for the courage to stand — even when the person on the other side is much bigger than I am.
Because sometimes faith asks us to surrender.
But not everything.
Surrender the anger. Surrender the hatred. Surrender the desire for revenge.
But your principles? Your dignity? The people entrusted to you? What you genuinely believe is right?
Sometimes those are the very things God is asking you to have the courage to stand for.
And maybe that's the lesson contained in one little piece of paper handed to a Filipino in Seoul.
Never mistake peace for weakness. And never assume that because someone is smaller, they have already surrendered.
