Now more than ever in the country’s history, there is great urgency for the Filipino people to struggle with utmost energy to achieve their long-held aspiration for genuine fredom from the semicolonial control and domination of American imperialists.

The deepening global crisis of the capitalist system and the intensifying conflict among imperialist powers is shaking the entire world. Amid this crisis, US military aggression is escalating further, driven by a malign scheme to impose hegemony in different parts of the world to control sources of raw materials and markets for dumping surplus commodities.

In the Philippines, the weight of US imperialism bears down heavily on the Filipino people. Thousands of US military forces maintain a permanent presence and conduct wide-ranging operations across the country, openly displaying their control and domination over the Philippines. The US relentlessly brandishes military force through successive war exercises. It recently launched a Tomahawk missile from a civilian airport in Tacloban City towards Nueva Ecija, endangering millions of Filipinos in Manila and other areas along its low-altitude flight path.

The US wields control of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), particularly the Philippine Navy, as well as the Philippine Coast Guard, to serve as escorts or guards for US naval forces maneuvering in seas around China. Massive US aircraft carriers are almost constantly docked or sailing in Philippine waters. These include the USS Abraham Lincoln, which passed through Philippine islands toward the South China Sea before sailing to the Middle East to support the US aggression against Iran. Recently, the US Coast Guard “patrolled” Scarborough Shoal, thousands of miles away from US coasts, to provoke and incite China.

The US imperialists are tightening their control of the puppet Marcos regime and the country’s foreign policy. Like parrots, the Marcos regime’s pro-US officials repeat US propaganda to justify the strategy of “encircling” and “containing” China’s growing strength. To support US operations, the Marcos regime also allowed the return of Japanese troops to the Philippines, in a blatant assault on the Filipino people’s demand for justice for the innumerable crimes of Japanese soldiers during their World War II occupation of the Philippines.

In the economy, the US now more aggressively pushes to tighten the control of American capitalists over the country’s natural resources under the Pax Silica framework. The US demands special treatment for American companies operating in the newly opened “economic security zones” in Pampanga and Tarlac for mineral processing and the construction of water-intensive infrastructure for artificial intelligence (AI). These American companies (with partner Israeli military firms) will pay no taxes or lease, and operate free from Philippine regulation and supervision. In line with US aims, the Marcos regime, led by the AFP and Department of Defense, targets and forces the closure of Chinese companies with factories in the Philippines.

In the military sphere, US intervention in the local counterinsurgency war is intensifying and fueling the reactionary state’s fascism against the people’s resistance. Under the Salaknib military exercises, US troops conduct trainings in “jungle warfare” and “small unit operations” primarily aimed at counter-guerrilla operations. It provides the AFP with jet fighters, helicopters, bombs, cannons, drones, anti-drone systems, GPS trackers, and other weapons in a desperate bid to crush the New People’s Army, one of the biggest obstacles to the total imposition of US power in the Philippines. American troops continue to intrude into remote rural areas, including Central Luzon, Bicol, and several provinces in Mindanao.

US imperialism fuels the fascist repression of the armed agents of the Marcos regime. US imperialism and delusional militarist officials are daydreaming that fascist repression can defeat the armed and unarmed resistance of the broad masses fighting for genuine freedom. The continued perseverance of the New People’s Army, its steady recovery of strength, and deepening nationwide mass support, prove that the Filipino people’s aspiration for genuine freedom and democracy will never be extinguished.

Nearly eight decades have passed since July 4, 1946 when US imperialism “granted” the Philippines false independence and established a puppet and fascist state. Colluding with the ruling classes of big comprador bourgeoisie, big landlords, and bureaucrat-capitalists, US imperialism condemned the Philippines to a semicolonial and semifeudal state.

Under 80 years of US semicolonial rule, the Philippines has been mired in endless economic crisis, denied of the opportunity to stand on its own. It preserved the backward feudal system and turned the country into an exporter of cheap raw materials. It forced the country into foreign debt addiction for temporary economic fixes, in exchange for imposing neoliberal policies, stripping forests bare, plundering mountains, seizing minerals, and grabbing hundreds of thousands of hectares of land. The Philippines has been used as a major military base for the US to project power over the country and across the world.

On June 12 “independence day,” celebration is meaningless amid the people’s suffering and oppression by foreign military forces. In 80 years of US semicolonial rule, American monopoly capitalists have seized the country’s wealth while degrading and starving the broad masses of workers and peasants. This chapter in the country’s history, which will lead to only deeper poverty and suffering, must end. The entire nation must unite and vigorously advance the people’s war for genuine liberation, democracy, and the nation’s salvation.