Statement of the NDFP International Office
This year’s iteration of the Balikatan war games has morphed into a full-blown machinery of war staging, with the Philippines increasingly shackled to the gears of US-led aggression against its imperialist rival China. Contrary to US claims, this war machine does not defend—it consumes. And it is using the Filipino people as its fuel.
Every year, the Balikatan war games expand in size, scope, and strategic ambition. What has unfolded in 2025 is no longer just a joint training exercise—it is full-spectrum preparation for regional war. With over 14,000 US and Philippine troops participating, the exercises stretch across Luzon, Palawan, and even into the northern provinces closest to Taiwan. At the center of this is the newly deployed Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) of the US Marine Corps, a rapid deployment force explicitly built for island-hopping warfare—tailored to harass enemy warships and provoke confrontation in the South China Sea. In effect, the Philippine archipelago is being transformed into a launchpad for skirmishes and provocations—not for Filipino defense, but for US military ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.
This year’s Balikatan also marks the field testing of new offensive weapons like the NMESIS—missile systems meant to strike warships from coastal positions. Their placement in Philippine territory is not neutral; it signals preparation for a first-strike posture. The Philippines is being positioned in the frontlines of a great-power confrontation not of our making. The cost will not be borne by the US, but by Filipino communities who will be caught in the crossfire of retaliatory strikes.
Under the cover of so-called Humanitarian Civic Assistance (HCA) programs, the US military is constructing infrastructure, prepositioning supplies, and embedding themselves in expanded EDCA sites. These projects serve to normalize US military presence and provide cover for “counterinsurgency” operations targeting organized peasant and indigenous communities. It is not a coincidence that the same areas hosting EDCA sites are also the sites of intensified militarization and repression.
Marcos Jr., like his father before him, has allowed the return and expansion of US military presence in the country. By increasing the number of EDCA sites and giving the US military broader access to Philippine territory, his regime has deepened US control over our lands and seas. The intensified US-backed counterrevolutionary war only affirms the necessity of armed struggle carried out by the New People’s Army under the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
The NDFP stands with the Filipino people and their revolutionary organizations in exposing and opposing the Balikatan exercises and all forms of US military intervention in the Philippines. These drills do not protect the Filipino people – they endanger us by turning the country into an easy target for Beijing, while at the same time strengthening the Marcos Jr. regime’s primary machinery for state repression.
In the face of expanded US military operations, the revolutionary movement will continue to advance the people’s war in the countryside. The people’s armed resistance remains the only truly viable path toward dismantling the structures of US imperialist control and feudal oppression. It is through the advance of the people’s war that the masses are able to defend themselves from relentless military offensives, protect their lands from big landlord interests, and build organs of political power. The people’s armed resistance remains the most effective means to assert national sovereignty and genuine democracy in the face of imperialist aggression and local tyranny. #
