Defend Philippine Sovereignty! No to US & China War Mongering in the Philippines!

On the 127th anniversary of Philippine independence from Spain, Malaya Movement USA calls on the Filipino people to continue the historic legacy of resistance and fight for the full realization of genuine independence and sovereignty in the Philippines. We must fight against Marcos Jr.’s selling out of our land, waters, economy, and labor to foreign powers and free our motherland! 

With tensions on the rise in the Asia-Pacific, war mongering between the U.S. and China is dragging the Philippines closer into open conflict. Marcos Jr. willfully endangers the Filipino people by exponentially increasing its military cooperation with the U.S. Since taking office, he has surrendered four more military bases to the U.S. under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), increased U.S. led military exercises and war games under the guise of deterring China, and has signed more military agreements inspired by the Visiting Forces Agreement with countries like Japan, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.

The US bases and military presence in the Philippines is a direct affront to Philippine sovereignty and democracy, and the hard won victories of the Filipino people’s movements that ousted Marcos Sr. and kicked out the US military bases in the 90’s. It’s also a direct violation of the 1987 PH constitution, which clearly states that “After the expiration in 1991 of the Agreement between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America concerning military bases, foreign military bases, troops, or facilities shall not be allowed in the Philippines”.

The U.S. is taking advantage of the Philippines’ maritime territorial disputes with China as an opportunity to perpetuate its dominance over the Asia-Pacific, while garnering massive profits through its weapons sales. At the recent Shangri-La Dialogue Summit in Singapore, US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, called on US allies in the Asia-Pacific to ramp up their military spending in order to quickly upgrade their defense against China, adding “deterrence doesn’t come on the cheap.” This will only endanger and devastate the lives of Filipinos for a war the people do not want.

Even without a full-on war with China, U.S. military aid and troop presence exacerbates human rights violations by PH and U.S. state forces. Despite well publicized documentation of state-sanctioned human rights violations and war crimes by Philippine military and police, the Philippines remains the largest recipient of U.S. military and security assistance in the Asia-Pacific. Since 2015, the US has sent over $1 billion worth of security assistance, and has offered over $10 billion in arms sales since 2019, including the most recent arms sales this year for $5.58 billion and $120 million – sales the Philippines is unable to afford unless it takes on foreign loans from the U.S., dragging the Philippines deeper into debt. 

While the U.S. remains the main instigator of war with China, we must also condemn China’s attacks and aggressive posturing in the West Philippine Sea, like the recent water cannon attacks by the Chinese Coast Guard against Philippine vessels near the Pag-Asa Cay 2. We must challenge China’s aggression and continue to assert the Philippines’ territorial claims throughout the contested waters, but there is no denying that U.S. presence provokes rather than deters Chinese encroachment in the West Philippine Sea.

In the clash between superpowers, Malaya Movement USA rejects the notion that the Philippines has to surrender its own independence to a superpower in order to defend itself against another. We demand diplomatic solutions to the territorial disputes, not war mongering. 

We call on all our patriotic kababayan to join the movement for genuine independence in the Philippines. It’s only through an organized people’s movement, that we can and will free our homeland from economic exploitation, foreign domination, and tyranny in the Philippines. 

US & China Out of the Philippines! The Philippines is not for Sale! Defend Philippine Sovereignty!