Statement by FFPS members in the US
Since the inauguration of Donald Trump this January 2025, fascist attacks on migrants across the US have escalated dramatically with undocumented people and even green card holders facing detention, deportation, and state terror across the country. These attacks have impacted migrants from around the world including Filipino migrants across the US.
In the face of attacks on the Filipino people living in the US, the Philippine government has continued its pattern of paltry or non-existent services to Filipinos living overseas. In fact, from the beginning of the Trump presidency, Philippine ambassador to the US, Jose Romualdez stated Filipinos living in the US should consider “self-deporting” making it known that the Philippine government would not be supporting any detained migrants from the get-go. Since then, Filipinos have been detained following immigration appointments and while passing through customs at airports while the consulates offer little more than empty gestures. The Philippine state, subservient to US imperialism, continues to treat its people both at home and abroad as disposable.
One migrant, Kuya Max, was detained after passing through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. While in detention, he was profiled and transferred to higher level of security and isolated. Through the organizing work of the Tanggol Migrante Movement a petition of 800 signatures was sent to the Philippine consulate which heard the voice of the people and were able to advocate for Kuya’s removal from segregation. Kuya Max was eventually released with the help of organizers after almost 2 months in detention-a victory won by the mass movement, with no help from the Philippine Consul General of San Francisco.
The neglect of overseas Filipinos by the Philippine government is not an accident. It is the outcome of their subservience to US imperialism. Under the current Marcos regime, this subservience has deepened, as the Philippines is once again being militarized and positioned as a launchpad for U.S. war provocations against China. Through lopsided military agreements like the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the Philippines is being used as a pawn in the US’ aggression-placing Filipinos both at home and abroad in the crosshairs of global conflict.
For decades the GRP has waged countless violent ‘counterinsurgency’ campaigns against the Filipino people with the support and direction of the US government. The US-Marcos regime has expanded and intensified these campaigns with its new counterinsurgency strategy, the National Action Plan-Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD), rebranding the failed “whole-of-nation” approach. But its US directed goal remains the same: crush the revolutionary movement without addressing the root causes of the armed conflict. Under the guise of “peace,” this strategy intensifies state terror, and deepens the exploitation and opression that the Filipino people face.
This militarization and the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry do not benefit ordinary Filipinos, nor Americans. Instead, they deepen poverty, displace communities, and further erode national sovereignty. Since the sham independence of 1946, the US has maintained a neocolonial stranglehold on the Philippines, keeping their economy backwards, keeping land in the hands of a few, and forcing millions of Filipinos into precarious work, including the dangerous and exploitative work that many migrants abroad must take up.
Today, 10,000 Filipinos leave the country per day in search of a better life-only to face fascist terror, detention, and neglect from both the US and Philippine states. They are criminalized for fleeing the conditions that US imperialism and the Philippines’ puppet ruling class maintains.
The revolutionary struggle in the Philippines, represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), continues to grow. Through its 12-point program, the NDFP is building the foundation for a just and liberated society-a foundation of genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, and self-determination. These are the solutions that cut the roots of forced migration and allow Filipinos to return home to a country that is sovereign, democratic, and in which the rich resources of the country are used for the benefit of the majority of its people.
One allied organization of the NDFP, Compatriots-USA, is building a revolutionary mass movement of overseas Filipinos in the US and intensifying its work from within the belly of the beast. In a recent interview with Compatriots-USA, members laid out the urgency of their work to agitate, organize, and mobilize Filipino migrants:
“Compatriots USA must reach Filipinos in the millions, organize those who will be most threatened by Trump, and raise their consciousness to direct their collective fight to overturning the semicolonial and semi-feudal system at the root of their suffering. This will be our greatest contribution to advancing our people’s war, which will rage even more fiercely in the Philippine countryside once Trump assumes office.”
FFPS members in the US stands in solidarity with Compatriots-USA and all Filipino migrants facing fascist attacks, neglect, and plunder by the US and the puppet Philippine state! We support the aspirations of the Filipino people as laid out in the NDFP’s 12-point program!
On and around this August 26, FFPS members in the US led cultural and educational actions as part of a Global Day of Action commemorating the Cry of Pugad Lawin – the 1896 uprising against Spanish colonialism. Members took action to expose and oppose the US-Marcos regime’s war of suppression under the guise of ‘peace’ while uplifting the Filipino people’s just revolutionary struggle as the genuine path to a just and lasting peace. As the Filipino people fight state terror at home, and migrants resist criminalization abroad, we have committed and re-committed ourselves to deepening our solidarity and strengthening our support for their just struggle for liberation.