Together with the Filipino people, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) condemns the US military and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for planning to hold another round of large-scale war exercises in the Philippines that trample on the country’s national sovereignty and further drag the country into military and economic conflicts of the Big Powers.

The US plan to bring tens of thousands of troops and naval war vessels to conduct war exercises at the Mavulis island, together with their Filipino minions, at the northernmost tip of the Batanes province, is clearly saber-rattling and a show of force which will surely be considered by China as acts of provocation. Mavulis is a mere 140 kilometers from the southern coast of Taiwan, which the US has long been stoking to separate from China.

The Filipino people must call for the withdrawal of all American troops stationed in the Philippines and demand the dismantling of all US military bases and facilities. Serving as host to thousands of American troops makes the Philippines a pawn of US geopolitical and military strategy. Continuing to allow the US to make use of the country as a military stronghold for mounting its overseas military operations takes away the country’s capacity to exercise an independent foreign policy and uphold the policy of peace, amity and cooperation with all nations.

We must be keenly aware of how the US pursuit of its policy of war has perpetuated endless armed conflicts over the past decades since the end of World War II. The now 2-year war in Ukraine, the Zionist Israel genocide of the Palestinian people, and the expanding and escalating war in the Middle East are just some of recent examples of armed conflicts that arose from the US imperialist policy of using war as instrument in imposing global hegemony, in its rivalry with other imperialist powers and as a means of oppressing countries assertive of their national sovereignty.

Under US colonial, and later neocolonial, rule, the Philippines has long been subjected to US military intervention, and used as a springboard for US wars, including wars of aggression in Korea and Taiwan, as well as in Iran and Afghanistan. Indoctrinated, trained, armed and funded by the US, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) serves as pillar of US domination in the Philippines.

The Filipino people must militantly resist and oppose the Balikatan war exercises, and fight US military intervention and its policy of using the Philippines as a stronghold for US hegemonism in Asia, before the country becomes completely sucked into the vortex of US-initiated wars.