The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) calls on the Filipino people to strongly denounce the December 26 voyage of the US Carrier Strike Group (CSG) One in the Surigao Strait between Leyte and Mindanao. Party information officer Marco Valbuena said the US brazenly traversed Philippines territorial waters from the Pacific en route to the West Philippine Sea.

Led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, the US naval formation is a war behemoth capable of carrying a large nuclear arsenal. It has a flotilla of war vessels including the USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110), USS Sterett (DDG 104), and USS Princeton (CG 59).

The CSG 1 has already passed through and docked in the Philippines several times this year. On January 5, CSG 1 docked in Manila for a visit as part of US and Philippine military operations. CSG-1 personnel participated in “cultural exchanges” and activities in Manila at that time.

Prior to this, CSG 1 was part of the second series of maritime cooperative activity (MCA) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) in the West Philippine Sea on January 3-4. These naval maneuvers and war games are part of the broader US imperialism’s military buildup and tension-heightening in the imperialist rival country, China.

“This show of brute military force is a gross affront on the dignity and senses of freedom-loving Filipino people. It tramples on the country’s sovereignty, bringing down further its status as a neocolony of US imperialism,” Valbuena said.

Apart from its direct presence in the Philippines’ sovereign waters and territory, CSG 1 has been sailing around the countries and waters of the Indo-Pacific as part of the anti-China campaign. It has conducted successive “patrols” with neocolonies and countries that are subservient to it.

Valbuena said Marcos’ servility to the imperialist US is unfathomable in its complicity on this affront on Philippine sovereignty. “It shows how the country is being used as a launching pad for US operations to flex its muscles in the Pacific and as a pawn in the US’ heightening of inter-imperialist tensions,” he said.

CSG 1 is just part of the broader US combat arsenal, military bases, and war games and US activities on Philippine land, waters, and airspace. From January to August this year, US military forces have conducted war games in the country almost every other day. These war games were recorded for at least 105 out of 244 days, with the longest and most intense period being from April 7 to June 21 (76 days).

The said group of combat ships is currently stationed in the Balabac Strait, near Palawan.