MANILA, Philippines — Countries that rely on Filipino workers to staff their hospitals, man their ships and care for their elderly have a duty to help protect them, Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro Jr. told a gathering of European defense leaders on Wednesday, March 25, as the war in the Middle East continues to affect over two million Filipino workers.
Separately, NATO's top military official has affirmed the alliance's willingness to deepen defense cooperation with the Philippines, after Teodoro raised the prospect during a meeting on the sidelines of the same forum a day earlier.
Teodoro delivered the keynote address at the 2026 Paris Defence and Strategy Forum on Wednesday, the first by a Southeast Asian defense minister in the event's history.
The defense chief's remarks come as war in the Middle East continues to rage and both the US and Iran are refusing to let up on the fighting.
Just less than a month earlier, a 32-year-old Filipino caregiver was killed by an Iranian missile strike in Israel while rushing her elderly ward to a bomb shelter.
'There cannot be a benefit without an obligation'
While Manila is not directly involved in the conflict, Teodoro told the gathering that one in every three crew members on international commercial ships is Filipino.
"One in three are healthcare professionals, form (sic) the backbone of providing healthcare to both Europeans and Americans," Teodoro said.
"Much to our regret, our people have been counted among those who are casualties from attacks both on land and at sea," the DND chief added.
That service comes at a cost, he said. Every Filipino who leaves to work abroad is human capital drained from the Philippines — a "zero-sum game" in which the home country loses its best so that others can gain.
"[There] cannot be a benefit without an obligation," Teodoro said. "And this obligation is simply, we should work together to protect them, to protect their home countries, under a shared vision of international law."
The Philippines, a net oil importer with no expeditionary armed force, has been hit on multiple fronts by the conflict, Teodoro stressed.
"Let us imagine a situation if, due to a conflict, our migrant workers, our seafarers, our healthcare workers, our occupational therapists, others that provide vital services to other countries, were forced to return home or were not allowed to help others beyond the Philippines. What would happen?" Teodoro said.
More than 2,000 Filipinos have been repatriated from the region since early March, with hundreds more in the pipeline and airspace closures in several countries complicating evacuations.
The disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has sent crude oil prices surging worldwide. The Philippines is among the hardest hit as it imports over 90% of its crude from the Middle East.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed an executive order activating emergency powers to manage the crisis on March 24, the same day Teodoro met with NATO officials in Paris.
NATO, Europe open the door
On March 24, a day before the keynote, Teodoro met NATO Military Committee Chair Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone on the forum's sidelines. Both officials agreed on the need for information-sharing and best practices between their forces, the Department of National Defense said in a statement.
The two had previously met at the 2025 Seoul Defense Dialogue in September.
The Philippines is laying the groundwork for enhanced interoperability with both NATO and the European Union, the defense department said, part of a broader push that has accelerated under the Marcos administration.
Manila concluded negotiations for a visiting forces agreement with France in December, its first with a European country, and signed a defense memorandum with Lithuania in 2025.
Teodoro also used the Paris address to call out China directly. In his speech, the DND chief accused Beijing of waging a campaign of misinformation to nullify the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling on the South China Sea — a landmark decision that turns a decade old this year.
'As our adversaries align, we should not fragment'
Teodoro framed the entire address as a call for convergence — between Europe and the United States, and between Europe and Asia — warning that smaller Southeast Asian states "cannot afford any fracture" between the Western powers that have upheld the rules-based order for eight decades.
"As our adversaries align, we should not fragment," he said. "We need no treaties to pursue such partnerships — this is immediately executory and doable."
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