The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) condemned the governments of the Philippines and Canada for signing the Philippines-Canada Status of Visiting Forces Agreement (SOVFA) on November 2. The agreement allows Canadian troops to enter and leave Philippine territory to take part in war games and other types of activities that, according to Bayan, trample on the country’s national sovereignty.

The Canada-Philippines SOVFA is the fifth agreement for “visiting” foreign troops. Three of these were signed under the Marcos regime, including those with New Zealand and Japan, and now with Canada. All these agreements follow the scope and provisions of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) between the Philippines and the imperialist US.

Negotiations for the SOVFA between Canadian and Philippine representatives formally began on January 16. The negotiation closed and both sides reached an agreement in March, after which the Philippine Department of National Defense announced that it was being finalized.

On November 2, DND Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr and Canadian Defense Minister David McGuinty signed the agreement. It also allegedly affirms the earlier Defense Cooperation Memorandum of Understanding signed in January 2024 between the two armed forces and governments.

The Philippine Senate must ratify the agreement for it to become fully effective. As in the past, the Senate is expected to swiftly pass and easily approve it without objections, even from opposition posers.

Before the signing of the SOVFA, Canada had already participated twice in Philippine war games. Acting as an “observer,” it took part in Balikatan 2024 and Balikatan 2025, considered historic in scale and used by the US to heighten tension and the threat of war against rival imperialist China.

Apart from Balikatan, Canada’s armed forces also joined three US-directed Philippine Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activities (MMCA) within the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone in the West Philippine Sea. The pretext of “freedom of navigation” justifies this intervention by foreign forces in the seas.

According to Bayan, the signing of the new agreement will turn the Philippines into an “armada haven and a war playground for foreign powers.” “[In relation to other agreements,] this systematically integrates the country into US-led war machine,” the group said.

The group added that these agreements do not serve national interests but instead pull the country into the vortex of geopolitical conflict. “By letting the Philippines become a staging ground, Marcos Jr’s administration drags our people into a war not of our making, turning our land into a battlefield and our people into cannon fodder for imperialist ambitions,” the group declared.

Bayan urged Filipinos to launch protests against the new Canada-Philippines agreement and to push for its rejection. It also called for the abolition of all VFAs, the expulsion of all foreign troops from the country, and an end to the policy of surrendering our national sovereignty and peace to warmongers.

In addition to existing agreements, Philippine officials announced that the country plans to enter into similar agreements with the governments and armed forces of France, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany, and India.