U.S. military, rotate yourselves out of the Philippines!
Malaya Movement condemns the increase of U.S. militarism in the Philippines and the continued collaboration of the fascist Marcos and Trump regimes, which will further endanger Filipinos as the U.S. ramps up its conflict with China. In early January 2026, the U.S. revealed its new Army Rotational Force-Philippines, which has already been covertly operating since July 2025, further stepping up its military presence in the country under the guise of protecting the region from "Chinese coercion".
The 50 personnel of the U.S. Army rotational force will join the roughly 200 personnel of the U.S. Marine Rotational Force-Southeast Asia, which has been operating since 2024. These forces are coordinated by the U.S. military's Task Force-Philippines, announced in October 2025, and are slated to conduct over 500 joint military exercises in the country in 2026.
This comes soon after the signing of PERA (Philippine Enhanced Resiliency Act) in December 2025, which allocates $2.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars from 2026-2030 to fund the development of Philippine military capabilities. While the Trump and Marcos regimes continue to work together to increase military presence in the region, the U.S. colludes with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to terrorize its own people to protect and enable destructive corporate interests, as seen with the recent bombings of the indigenous communities of Mindoro.
A long history of U.S. military control in the Philippines
The U.S. has had a foothold in the Philippines ever since American powers colonized the islands as a territory after the Spanish-American War and killed over 1 million Filipinos in the genocidal Philippine-American War that followed. The Military Bases Agreement (1947) and the Mutual Defense Treaty (1951) ensured neo-colonial control of the country after World War II, but bases were banned when the Philippine Senate rejected the extension of the Military Bases Agreement in 1991 due to the powerful anti-bases protest movement of the Filipino people.
Even with the banning of military bases, the U.S. has schemed to maintain a strong presence, with the implementation of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) in 1998 as a workaround to keeping U.S. troops on Philippine soil. With the undemocratic signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) in 2014, the U.S. has now re-established at least 17 new military bases across the country, including at least 8 in undisclosed secret locations.
The war-mongers in the Trump camp like Pete Hegseth are openly using the threat of Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea to further their military control of the Philippines. This control is two-fold; the U.S. lays its claim to the archipelago as an “unsinkable airship” while ensuring the local bureaucrat capitalists continue to take land from indigenous groups for mining and tourism that serves foreign corporate interests.
Profiting from the Filipino people's pain and suffering
The U.S. exploitation of indigenous communities reflects and aligns with the Marcos regime's own intentions. Marcos has already used the language of “unity, peace, and development” to justify landgrabbing for the construction of mining projects and industrial zones that only serve to line the pockets of the big landlords and their foreign masters. His recent signing of the Philippines-United States Critical Minerals Pact will further sell out our natural resources to serve the U.S. supply chain for US industrial and military production.
Marcos inherits this strategy not only from his father, who used looted money to fund his own lavish lifestyle and infamous “roads to nowhere”, but also from his criminal predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who oversaw the construction of a fairground for tourism on the razed ground of Marawi City. The devastating 2017 Siege of Marawi was conducted with the U.S. military providing a direct advisory role to the Philippine military and police through intelligence sharing, surveillance, and aerial reconnaissance - similar to how the U.S. supported the Zionist genocide in Israel and the razing of Gaza - paving the way for business interests to profit from reconstruction.
We cannot allow the Marcos-Duterte regime to continue selling out the Filipino people’s land and dragging the Philippines further into the clutches of U.S. war mongering against China! Hold Marcos and Duterte accountable for their crimes against the Filipino people. Replace them with a National Transitional Council that truly represents all sectors of Philippine society.
We must act now. We demand an end to U.S. militarization and U.S.-backed war crimes in the Philippines! Defend Philippine Sovereignty!
