The 12th of June has always been commemorated by the Filipino people, some believing that our country as well as its citizens have been freed from colonialism. Hence, every 12th of June, we keep on reminding them that the prison cell we are in is just as wide as our country.
However free the mainstream media may depict our country, we should not be tricked into believing it because we experience, first hand, the manifestations of the imperialist US controlling our country in terms of our economy, politics, military, and culture.
Fresh from election season, we have been reminded that the reactionary government is full of plunderers and mass murderers, disguising as people who genuinely want to serve the country.
No matter how they dress themselves, they cannot cover their stench as local puppets of the Imperialist US. Through them, the US is able to impose laws and policies that favors its country to a great degree. Even the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines is a full-blown photocopy of the US Constitution.
Talking about economy, the Philippines is claimed by the US as its colonial market where it throws its surplus capital and product. It strengthens feudalism through implementing neoliberal policies, consequently making the Philippines’ economy import-dependent and export-oriented. For instance, the monocrop sugar industry in Negros only answers the need of the United States rather than those who till the land day and night—the Negrosanon farmers and farm workers.
Not to mention, the orientation of the Philippines’ educational system is colonial, commercialized, and repressive. With the additional 2 years in secondary education under the K-12 program, it is intent on supplying more cheap labor for imperialist countries to exploit.
In addition, for more than a decade, the presence of US military troops flooded the Philippines with its military bases within the country.
Military influences by the US strengthen throughout the Marcos Jr regime as it enters several military agreements with the ally countries of the US including Japan. Then and now, the Philippines is heavily chained to the US agenda.
We are not truly free and we have a long way to go. As such, we call on all democratic and revolutionary forces to multiply their ranks by tenfold and exert all-out effort in pushing for agrarian revolution, establishing mass bases, and of course, leveling up the armed struggle. We must continue waging the national democratic revolution for it is the only means to achieving sovereignty and democracy.