The announcement yesterday by Ferdinand Marcos Jr. that he plans to re-sign or further extend the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) means that the Philippines will continue to be subservient to US foreign policy and remain a large base of the US military forces in the Asia-Pacific region.

Marcos, who is set to be proclaimed president in the recent elections marked by large-scale automated fraud, is set to serve as chief of the Philippine neo-colonial state that protects the strategic economic and political of US and other foreign banks and big corporations in the country.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) denounces the plan to further extend or renew the VFA, which in combination with the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and other agreements, allows US military forces to use the country’s sovereign spaces for their military purposes.

Extending or renewing the VFA, furthermore, will make the country a military target of the imperialist rivals of the US. Specifically, the possibility of the Philippines being pulled into a military conflict between the US and China heightens. On the one hand, the country is being used by the US military to mount increasingly aggressive or provocative military actions in the Southeast and East Asia, particularly in the Taiwan Strait. On the other hand, China continues to fortify its military positions in the West Philippine Sea in violation of Philippine sovereignty over its maritime territory and exclusive economic zone.

The CPP and all revolutionary forces reiterate the demand to abrogate the VFA, the EDCA and other unequal military agreements with the US, and dismantle all military facilities in the country. At the same time, the Party demands that China remove all its military bases and facilities in the West Philippine Sea and respect Philippine sovereign rights as recognized under the United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Seas (UNCLOS).

The CPP calls on the Filipino to vigorously push their demand for genuine national sovereignty and stand more determined especially as the country faces the threat of further erosion of national freedom under a patently subservient Marcos regime.