For established space powers, the challenge is often how to maintain leadership in an increasingly contested domain. For emerging spacefaring nations, the first hurdle may be far more fundamental: convincing their own citizens that investment in space is both legitimate and worthwhile. As new national space agencies are created across the developing world, they face the difficult task of balancing scientific ambition, national security and public accountability at a time when misinformation, conspiracy theories and social media can rapidly undermine trust in public institutions. Using the Philippines as a case study, John Benito argues that legitimacy should be regarded as a strategic capability in its own right. Building public confidence, he suggests, may prove just as important to long-term success as developing satellites, launch capabilities or technical expertise.
Discussion of the new space frontier has long been dominated by established powers such as the United States, Russia and China. Their mature civilian and military space capabilities have driven decades of innovation, with many of those advances now spilling over to emerging spacefaring nations, including the Philippines.
These middle-power states may be considered as emerging spacefaring nations by most standards and it can be inferred that their national space agencies are still in their formative years, just starting to apply space science and technology to their national defences.
While they may borrow a blueprint from the history of established spacefaring states, especially if they have an alliance with them, the new era may bring unique characteristics to long-held institutional barriers. One of the challenges is ensuring public legitimacy, as institutions rarely survive without the proper recognition of the people. This is not only the case in liberal democracies but also in authoritarian states in which the word ‘people’ may pertain to a governing or powerful elite. Strategic mandates, functions and performances of any form may not be as decisive as support from the general public or valuable stakeholders.
President Rodrigo Duterte signs the Philippine Space Act (RA 11363), August 2019.
National space agencies can face the same predicament, especially since the space domain is something the people may have no first-hand knowledge of or direct connection with. For the Philippines, the effects of not surmounting this hurdle would put the state in a more difficult security situation given that it is not yet a space power.
There is no practical excuse to stagnate, as outer space is mankind’s future and is slowly gaining ground in security affairs. It is therefore important to raise two connected questions: what are the specific ways that emerging spacefaring nations like the Philippines may lose legitimacy from the people; and what are the possible means to alleviate such occurrences? Answering these questions is vital for any state that anchors high hopes in outer space.
Space AgencyOne of the challenges is ensuring public legitimacy, as institutions rarely survive without the proper recognition of the people
The Republic of the Philippines established the Philippine Space Agency (PhilSA) in 2018, by means of Republic Act 11363, as a part of the Philippine Space Council. Intended to be used for multisectoral purposes, such as national defence, science, technology and communications, PhilSA was created to be a state organ for research and development that would manage the country’s outer space assets and promote public knowledge about space, amongst other duties.
With barely a decade of experience, it can be argued that the Agency’s foundational legitimacy to Filipinos is still fragile. While there is no evident issue so far to tarnish its reputation, PhilSA currently operates in relative obscurity. Its legitimacy status is indirect, because its functions are created by government officials that the people elect.
The public is currently occupied with practical Earth-bound concerns such as energy supply, corruption scandals and social welfare. However, this obscurity is a grey area that could vanish as a result of just a single national issue or scandal, moving PhilSA from a relatively protected position to an undesirable one. If such a negative scenario were to occur, PhilSA has virtually no popular programme embraced by the masses to balance a tarnished reputation. Moreover, the lack of sufficient public knowledge about PhilSA would be detrimental in the long run as its practical purpose may not be understood.
PhilSA joined the National Peace Walk on 12 July 2026, reaffirming its commitment to upholding the Philippines’ sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea and underscoring the Agency’s support for national security through utilising data from space. The activity marked the 10th anniversary of the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Award, a landmark international ruling that affirmed the Philippines’ sovereign rights within its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Conspiracy theories
The potential danger in this scenario is conspiratorial thinking, which refers to the tendency of people, particularly those who lack knowledge of affairs that involve power and authority, to frame events or phenomena as malicious, destructive and hidden for the benefit of a powerful or influential few. This mindset prevails when an unanswered need of the people is correlated to unknown information, usually regarding a controversial topic. Given these conditions, it is not controversial to infer that a state organ may be a victim of conspiratorial thinking since it engages in secrecy to pursue its interests.
The security and outer space sectors are included here, as they rely on intelligence agencies for vital information and can only remain credible without a conventional degree of public transparency.
Strategic mandates, functions and performances of any form may not be as decisive as support from the general public or valuable stakeholders.
PhilSA already manifests its national security function. One example is its partnership with the Philippine Coast Guard, allowing the latter to use satellite data to safeguard maritime spaces and therefore territorial integrity. If there is more innovation in the agency, these satellites could potentially be used in service of other military branches as well as different forms of intelligence gathering.
Although there is no direct solid evidence yet that PhilSA and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are jointly affected by conspiracies, the two domains they essentially represent have recorded susceptibility. Two well-known examples of enduring conspiracy theories are the Roswell Incident in 1947, where the US military was allegedly involved in a cover-up of a crashed flying saucer from outer space, and the 1969 Moon landing in which NASA astronauts allegedly filmed the landing inside the Area 51 US Air Force base. These conspiracy theories are widely available on the internet for anyone to consume.
Anticipating what may lie ahead, future ‘conspiratorial thinking’ in the Philippines could be facilitated with ease through algorithm amplification on social media as well as plain old ‘black propaganda’, fuelled by financial interests.
The Filipino public is surrounded by different forms of information due to its penchant for social connection and the need to survive economically through technological devices. If the national space agency has a difficult time satisfying the people’s desire for knowledge, it may falter due to sabotage and other actions damaging to the Philippine outer space domain. As already mentioned, the outer space domain is inaccessible to most people; the technological instruments serving as medium between outer space and the ground can be mistrusted as they can be perceived as manipulative or deceptive to empirical senses.
Strategy
How do we prepare for these scenarios then? Pre-emptive measures are clearly needed so that the possible negative implications do not materialise. While the obvious strategy is to obtain and maintain legitimacy from people, the tactic can focus on two interrelated concepts and practices: diplomacy and public relations.
Combining both would bring together political leadership and public relations for the purpose of informing the Filipino people about the defence-related functions and plans of PhilSA; ushering an unhindered partnership between PhilSA, the branches of AFP and the whole defence sector; and placating the public while maintaining the needed secrecy of the state institutions.
Diplomacy can help PhilSA through partnerships with more established agencies, such as NASA and JAXA, whose long experience of communicating with the public while supporting national security programmes offers valuable lessons. Combined with a proactive public relations strategy tailored to Filipino audiences, these partnerships could help build confidence in PhilSA’s mission while maintaining the level of operational secrecy that sensitive government activities require.
The production of programmes, reports or statements must be analysed for the possible reception of the Filipino people. With PhilSA being the main actor involved in outer space, the largest portion of the efforts must focus on the agency followed by the AFP and the national government.
Overall, these two tactics must also be future-oriented and sensitive to evolving communication technologies and the ways information is disseminated.
PhilSA and JAXA co-organised the Southeast Asian Space Leaders’ Forum at the 31st Session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF-31) in November 2025 with representatives from Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Timor-Leste, Thailand and Vietnam. Key takeaways underscored the importance of strong regional and global cooperation in space science and technology applications, and addressing future space challenges.
Study and learnWith barely a decade of experience, it can be argued that the Agency’s foundational legitimacy to Filipinos is still fragile
The case of the Philippines may be nuanced in its own terms, but it deserves analyses from states that have a shared interest with the country. States that are considered as middle powers with a developing economy, generally democratic and, most importantly, emerging spacefaring nations with a recently formed national space agency, will directly benefit from studying the Philippine predicament.
The Philippine Space Agency’s logo is partly inspired by the phenomenon known as the Overview Effect, a term coined by space philosopher and writer Frank White, and partly by the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ photograph of Earth taken by Voyager 1 space probe from about six billion kilometres away. It represents the desire as well as the need to get to know the world from the outside vantage point. The gradual lightening of the blue shade represents the movement from dark to light, from ignorance to knowing.
States that developed their outer space capability and autonomy during the Cold War faced the same challenge in building legitimacy from their people. NASA, on the eve of the launch of Apollo 11, faced the question of whether the agency was just “blowing away taxpayer dollars to the Moon”, without substantial returns. But it didn’t have to deal with the pitfalls of social media and the technologies that facilitate it, nor companies illegally selling data to entities aiming to control algorithms influencing the public.
Despite the need for a consistent strategic approach to the nearfuture, state rivalry in outer space requires technological and cognitive shifts, and adjustments in responses where national security is involved. In the end, the international system may present imbalances in power as natural because not all states are adversarial with an offensive-oriented security doctrine. But these are not reasons for middle and even small powers around the world not to adapt with their security capabilities. Even with fewer resources, they must recognise the emerging trend in military affairs: that outer space is likely to become an established domain in armed conflicts.
For emerging spacefaring nations, technological capability alone will never be enough. The success of a national space agency ultimately depends on something less tangible but equally strategic: the confidence of the people it exists to serve.
About the author
John Louis B. Benito, LPT, MA received a Master’s degree in International Studies from De La Salle University and is currently a faculty lecturer in the Department of International Studies at the same institution. His main focus is on security studies and astropolitics in relation to outer space and his interests include research writing, policy making and industry practices in the field.