EDITORIAL: Exploring the Brics option | Sept. 11, 2026

0:00Greetings and salutations. Thank you for lending an ear to the voice of the Times for Friday, September 11, 2026 for today's editorial. Exploring the BRICS option, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. will attend this year's BRICS Summit in New Delhi, India, over the weekend. He is attending in his capacity as the current chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN. It will be the first time a Philippine leader has been invited to the annual meeting of the coalition of major emerging economies. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The group's original members when it was formed in 2009. It has since expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia. At least 30 other developing, countries are interested to join. In terms of demographic scale, BRICS represents roughly half of the world's population. It accounts for as much as 40% of global gross domestic product, GDP, and controls a large slice of the world's energy supply. With its size and economic potential, BRICS has been touted as the voice of the global South and a powerful platform for shaping global

1:04order in the decades too. Come, many used to belittle BRICS as the poor man's version of the group of seven, G7, the cartel of seven giant economies that has long dominated international financial governance, not anymore. It has grown in stature as G7's emerging rival, and, consequently, anti-West. The sentiment is fueled by the fact that China is not only BRICS chief architect, it is also its biggest financier and main political driving force as well. BRICS was established on the premise that international institutions like the world, bank and international monetary fund, IMF, were in the tight grip of Western powers, and had ceased to serve developing countries. The first leaders summit was hosted in 2009 by Russia, which envisioned an alliance that would be the counterweight to Western economic dominance. In no time, China took charge of charting the course for the new grouping, and attracting new members to its fold. It was Beijing which set up the new development bank, NDB, in Shanghai as the hub of a financial structure that will directly compete with the World Bank and the IMF. It also aligned BRICS agenda with the Belt and Road

2:07Initiative, China's version of the G7's partnership for global infrastructure and investment. BRICS biggest ambition is the de-dollarization of international trade and pushing the Chinese currency, Renman B, as an alternative, even as the BRICS economies challenge the Western dominated order, bilateral. Issues have created fissures within the group that eroded its policy-making capabilities. China and India, for one, have not fully settled their decadess-long border disputes, and new Delhi maintains strong economic ties with Washington. The members are also divided on what the block should be. The anti-Western faction made up of China, Russia and Iran as it odds with the not-aligned camp of India, Brazil, the UAE and South Africa. BRICS biggest structural weakness is that it does not have a conflict resolution, mechanism to settle internal disputes. For now, the feuds are manageable, but as the coalition grows, the need for a formal structure for resolving differences becomes more urgent, understandably, the West is wary of BRICS. The coalition, basically, is not anti-Western. Its vision is inclusive economic globalization,

3:11an open and balanced world, economy, and supporting countries to embark on a development path that suits their own national conditions. For Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the expansion and modernization of BRICS sends a message that all global institutions should adapt to changing times in that. Expansion will further strengthen the faith of many countries of the world in the multipolar world order. President Marcos' participation in the BRICS summit provides an opportunity for the Philippines and ASEAN to forge greater cooperation and trade, investment, regional, security and climate resilience with the coalition's members. The country can gain access to a block that controls a fifth of a global GDP and open a huge alternative market for agricultural exports like fruits and food products outside of traditional buyers like the United States and Japan. The NDB could provide the Philippines with a lending pipeline for high stakes, infrastructure, digital connectivity and climate resilience projects with less restrictive conditions than those imposed by Western financial institutions. These are pathways that the Philippines would do well to explore.