The Philippines faces a challenging tenure as ASEAN chair, with its agenda complicated by escalating global tensions, including strikes on Iran and disruptions to crucial shipping routes.

When Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr accepted the Asean gavel from Malaysian counterpart Anwar Ibrahim in Kuala Lumpur last October, the script was already written: a packed agenda, South China Sea diplomacy in the spotlight and a regional digital economy deal to clinch. Then the world changed. On February 28, US and Israeli forces struck Iran. The Strait of Hormuz, an artery of global shipping through which 98 per cent of the Philippines’ crude oil imports travel, became a war zone......