The US imperialists spilt the blood of millions of Filipinos and took away Philippine freedom in 1898. It colonized the country as part of its global empire. It “granted” Philippine independence 78 years ago today, with its puppets at the helm of the neocolonial state and its armed forces.

The US government keeps claiming they are “friends, partners and allies” with the Filipino people. In truth, over the past century and a quarter, they have proven themselves the biggest enemy of the Filipino people. The US imperialists continue to regard the Philippines as its possession and imposes its hegemony through economic dominance and military control.

On this day, the Filipino people must reject US imperialism’s claims of friendship. There can be no real friendship between an oppressor and the oppressed, between an imperialist power and the subjugated peopled.

Economic control and military domination

The US monopoly capitalists have continuously siphoned the country’s wealth and prevented its progress, in collusion with the local ruling classes of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords. Across the country, American multinational corporations dispossessed millions of peasants and minority people of their land.

They have subjected Filipino workers to exploitation with dirt-cheap wages. They caused massive environmental destruction with decades of timber and mining operations. They dump their surplus commodities and capital on the Philippines hindering the growth of local economic factors. US imperialism has condemned the country to a state of backwardness, import-dependence and source of cheap raw materials and cheap labor.

The US imperialists have kept tight control of the Philippines through the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the entire security establishment. Military officers and defense officials are firmly in the hands of the US Pentagon and its advisers and agents in the Philippines. They are fully indoctrinated with US strategic interests.

Established under the image of the US military, the AFP is completely dependent on US foreign military financing to transfer surplus, previous generation and hand-me down weapons. The AFP, along with the Philippine National Police (PNP) are tools in the hands of the US imperialists for suppressing the patriotic and democratic forces in the country. On US goading, the AFP has engaged in a massive campaign of aerial bombing across the country, in much the same way that it provided Israel with and endless supply of bombs to pulverize Gaza.

Historic levels of subservience of the Marcos regime

Over the past year, US military intervention has gone into overdrive, with the history-making subservience of the Marcos regime and tightened control over the Philippine military and security forces.

Under the Marcos regime, the US imperialists have reinforced its domination in the Philippines, resulting in further aggravation of the situation of the Filipino people. The broad masses of the Filipino people are suffering from US-imposed neoliberal economic measures which have resulted in spiralling prices, low wages, widespread unemployment, land grabbing and economic dispossession.

Since assuming power, Marcos has allowed the US to establish more military bases and facilities in the Philippines in order to forward-deploy troops and weapons, including jet fighters, drones, missiles, and so on, in line with its so-called Indo-Pacific strategy to contain China. The US has recently deployed in Basa Air Base, its notorious Reaper drones, which were widely used in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and used in the killings of several thousand civilians.

The US has heightened naval surveillance and maneuvers in the South China Sea and West Philippine Sea. At least two US carrier strike groups—the USS Ronald Reagan and the USS Nimitz—have regularly conducted maneuvers through the South China Sea, the West Philippine Sea, the Bashi Channel, together with scores of other US warships and naval vessels.

It has virtually opconned (operation and control) the AFP and Philippine Coast Guard (under the guise of “inter-operability”) to support US deployment, surveillance operations, for provocations against China, in the guise of supply missions, war exercises and joint patrols. The US has dragged its military allies in the NATO, QUAD and AUKUS to deploy naval warships in the South China Sea.

Heightened US military presence on Philippine land and seas has raised the temperature of US imperialist conflict with China. This has resulted in heightened tensions in South China Sea disputes, led to skirmishes between the Philippines and China, and further turned the country into a pawn of US geopolitical strategy.

Today, the Filipino people must reaffirm their determination to struggle for genuine freedom from US imperialist domination and oppression. They must set their aims and denounce the Marcos regime and oppose its blind subservience to US economic policy and military dominance. The struggle for national and social liberation is a long and arduous resistance, but will be waged indefatigably by the Filipino people in order to realize their deep aspiration for freedom, justice, peace and progress.