The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan strongly condemned the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) signed by the Philippines and Japan on January 15. The signing coincided with the visit of Japan’s foreign affairs minister Toshimitsu Motegi in Manila and the donation of ₱341 million to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Bayan called the ACSA a “deepening of imperialist agenda in the Philippines.” The meeting between Motegi and Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro under the guise of a “Strengthened Strategic Partnership” was “nothing less than a brazen push to drag the Filipino people into the U.S.-Japan provocations in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea,” it said.

This (ACSA) is not partnerships of equals but chains binding the Philippines to Tokyo’s re-militarization drive and Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategy aimed at encircling China,” Bayan said.

The group declared that the Philippine seas belong to the Filipino people, not to competing imperialists.

The ACSA allows Japan to store food, fuel, ammunition, and other logistics for its own forces while in the Philippines for war games and other military operations under the guise of disaster response and humanitarian assistance. The agreement stems from the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA), which permits Japanese troops to stay in the country. The Philippine Senate ratified the RAA in 2024, taking effect in mid-2025.

Concurrent with the ACSA signing, Japan granted a token ₱341-million Official Security Assistance or military aid package for the AFP. The funds are earmarked for building shelters for boats and ports for rigid-hulled inflatable boats (RHIBs)—the type used in heightening tensions between Philippine and Chinese forces in disputed South China Sea areas.

Japan also allotted ₱617 million aid for telecommunications infrastructure construction in the Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi (BaSulTa) region.

Bayan firmly opposes the ACSA and RAA, along with other lopsided military accords such as the EDCA and VFA between the Philippines and the US. It said the two imperialist powers are turning the Philippines into a “forward base of aggression.”

The people will not allow the country to become cannon fodder in imperialist games, Bayan said.