Robert Reid | Chairperson FFPS
Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) strongly condemns the recent approval of a $5.58 billion arms sale by the US to the Government of the Philippines (GRP) in its continuous bid to strengthen its presence and arm its neocolonies in the Asia Pacific. Rather than addressing the urgent needs of the Filipino people, president Marcos engages on an intensified war-path against the Filipino people only to serve US imperialist interests, selling-out the Filipino people in the process.
In a bid to the U.S. government, the Marcos administration has requested the purchase of 20 F-16 fighter aircraft, along with a variety of military equipment such as 500-pound MK-82 and 2,000-pound MK-84 general purpose bombs, AN/APG-83 AESA radars, munitions, training systems, and comprehensive maintenance and logistical support. If no objections are raised by the US Congress, the approval will lead to the formal negotiation and final sale and delivery to the GRP.
The US’ arming of the Marcos government — despite its track record as a war criminal and human rights violator — is part of the US’ “pivot” to Asia and its efforts to contain its imperialist rival, China.
As a rabid lapdog, the US-Marcos government has maintained and expanded military agreements with the US government. The US-Marcos administration reaffirmed the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, expanded the number of US military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to nine confirmed sites, increased joint military exercises and “security collaboration,” as well as the secret deployment of US Typhon missile systems to an undisclosed location within the country, ensuring the US’ stronghold in the country and preparing to drag the country into the US’ war efforts against China.
Even though these purchases are supposedly for “air defense” and “territorial defense,” the fighter jets and bombs are sure to be used in the ongoing US-directed “counterinsurgency” war against the Filipino people, which has the aim of fully subverting the Philippine islands to US imperialist interests. In the context of this war effort, the GRP and its Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have exposed themselves as rabid International Humanitarian Law (IHL) violators and war criminals. Only recently, on the 8th of March, 2 FA-50 fighter jets dropped 8 bombs on a Bukidnon farming community, causing indiscriminate destruction to the people’s sources of livelihood. The International People’s Tribunal of 2024 comprehensively delivered a guilty verdict to the Marcos and Duterte governments, as well as to the US government, for their war crimes against the Filipino people, which included the bombing campaigns.
The $5.58 billion that the US-Marcos government plans to use to buy war materiel could instead fund critical public services, such as reversing the 2025 budget cuts to the health and agricultural sectors, fully covering one of these sectors’ proposed budgets or covering almost 30% of the budget for education. Instead of addressing the worsening economic conditions in the Philippines, the US-Marcos regime highlights its subservience to US imperialism by planning to use public money to expand its criminal “counterinsurgency” in the interest of the US.
As FFPS we stand with the Filipino people’s resistance against being dragged into a war of US imperialism, and call on all internationalists to oppose all arms sales and aid to the US-Marcos war criminals. We should continue to expose the US-Marcos government as rabid IHL violators and isolate them from the international community, as well as raise our objections to this particular arms deal to the US congress and challenge the principal contractor, Lockheed Martin, located in Greenville, SC. The Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation deserves our all-out support as the strongest weapon against US imperialist domination and war in the Asia-Pacific.