On the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States and the commemoration of “Philippine-American Friendship Day”, Compatriots-NDFP, the revolutionary organization of overseas Filipinos, enjoins the Filipino people to see the United States for what it really is: an imperialist superpower that, now more than ever, is desperate to maintain its neocolonial control over the Philippines.
While the ruling classes continue to celebrate a so-called friendship between the two countries, July 4 reminds us that the Filipino people’s struggle for genuine national liberation remains unfinished. The formal granting of independence in 1946 did not end US domination over the Philippines. It successfully retained neocolonial rule with the support of the Filipino landlord, bourgeois comprador, and bureaucrat capitalist classes that manage foreign control over the country’s economy, politics, military, and culture.
Eight decades after the declaration of bogus Philippine independence from the US, the country’s economy remains bound to the interests of foreign monopoly capital and its local comprador, landlord, and bureaucrat capitalist allies. Unequal agreements, neoliberal policies, and military dependence have preserved the semicolonial and semifeudal character of Philippine society. The country’s vast natural wealth continues to be extracted for foreign profit while millions of Filipinos suffer from landlessness, unemployment, depressed wages, and the absence of genuine national industrialization. The Labor Export Policy has likewise condemned generations of Filipinos to leave their homes and families in search of livelihoods abroad, making migration a structural consequence of imperialist domination rather than a matter of individual choice.
As the US marks the 250th year of its founding, it confronts worsening economic crisis, intensified rivalry with competing powers, and growing resistance from oppressed peoples across the Global South. To preserve its global dominance, US imperialism has accelerated military expansion throughout the Asia-Pacific, strengthened its military and economic alliances, and tightened control over strategic technologies, critical mineral supply chains, and global production networks. The Philippine government has willingly integrated the country into these strategic objectives at the expense of national sovereignty and the welfare of the Filipino people.
We condemn the Marcos Jr. administration for further entrenching US military control through the expansion of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), the continued Salaknib and Balikatan military exercises, and other defense arrangements that increase the presence of US troops, military equipment, and infrastructure across the archipelago. These agreements transform Philippine territory into a strategic platform for US military operations in the Indo-Pacific theater, and expose Filipino communities to heightened militarization. They are also the source of funding and training for the brutal counterinsurgency operations conducted by the Philippine military, especially in the countryside. In totality, US militarism and counterinsurgency place the country at the forefront of an inter-imperialist rivalry that serves foreign interests, which puts the Filipino people at increasing risk of mortal danger.
Compatriots-NDFP sees through the US’ veneer of economic cooperation that conceals the human and ecological threats posed by the Pax Silica project. The 1,620-hectare land parcel in New Clark City, Tarlac that Marcos Jr. has generously “given” to the Trump administration’s AI & industrial hub only consolidates the empire’s control over the global supply chain for artificial intelligence, semiconductors, critical minerals, and other strategic industries essential to both commercial competition and military production. The Marcos Jr. administration’s participation in Pax Silica, along with the establishment of the Luzon Economic Corridor (LEC) and the planned Economic Security Zone in New Clark City, integrates Philippine land, infrastructure, mineral resources, and labor into the geopolitical and military requirements of US imperialism.
Far from guaranteeing peace and stability, these arrangements increase the danger of armed conflict in the region. As more military facilities and strategic infrastructure are established across the country, the Philippines becomes increasingly vulnerable to the consequences of an escalating confrontation between the US and China. We maintain that Filipino people should never be treated as instruments in the pursuit of imperialist hegemony, nor be compelled to bear the costs of wars that advance foreign strategic interests.
History has shown Filipinos and oppressed people the world over that the ultimate instrument for national liberation is armed struggle. We take our cue from the Katipunan generation and the armed national democratic movements that followed in recognizing that the imperialist ruling class will never surrender its colonial holdings unless the oppressed rise up and fight.
Let us intensify our support for the New People’s Army in their advancement of liberating the countryside and encircling the cities. With the Communist Party of the Philippines at the helm, our broad movement must advance the national democratic revolution by all means, and as a movement marching towards socialist construction. We enjoin all overseas Filipinos to return to the homefront and play the historic role in fighting for the overthrow of US imperialism!
