The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today denounced the US government and Marcos regime for holding the Kamandag 6 joint war exercises which is contributing to further worsening of armed tensions with China over the Southeast Asia and East Asia regions.

The joint military exercises will run from October 3 to 14. Involving approximately 630 Philippine soldiers and 2,550 US Marines, military exercises will be held in Luzon, Batanes and Palawan. Soldiers from South Korea and Japan are also set to participate.

CPP Chief Information Officer Marco Valbuena pointed out that the Kamandag 6 military exercises between the Philippines and US armed forces only worsen imperialist tensions between China and the US. “Worse, the Marcos regime is allowing the US to use the country as a launching pad for a possible war with China,” he said.

The joint exercises come a few months after the provocative visit of US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, and a week after a similar visit by US Vice President Kamala Harris in South Korea.

Valbuena pointed out that the US military takes advantage of these exercises to “further stoke the counterinsurgency war” in the Philippines. These serve as cover “for intervention in the Philippines’ affairs internal affairs.”

Valbuena denounced the US military for its plan to use “humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations” as a “psywar tool to bribe military and local officials and deceive the people into accepting their interventionist presence.”

According to Valbuena, Marcos Jr is exhibiting complete subservience to the US in exchange for the ‘privilege’ of purchasing a few obsolete second-hand war materiél from the US military’s scrapyard.

Valbuena urged the Filipino people to protest the ongoing Kamandag 6 joint military exercises. “The presence of thousands of US soldiers with their warships, jetfighters and weapons systems in the Philippines constitute a gross violation of Philippine sovereignty and is a slap in the face of freedom-loving Filipinos,” he said.

“For around 2 weeks, 2,550 American soldiers will freely move around the country for war games, conduct counter-guerrilla trainings, live-fire exercises and intelligence operations and carry out power-projection operations in the South China Sea,” he added.

Valbuena said the revolutionary armed struggle being waged by the New People’s Army aim to put an end to US domination and military intervention in the Philippines.

This year’s Kamandag or the “Kaagapay Ng Mga Mandirigma ng Dagat” is the sixth iteration of the exercise. Military units involved will conduct amphibious operations, special operations, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations, and territorial defense capabilities. (CPP Information Bureau)