The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) strongly condemned the overlapping and non-stop US war games conducted across Philippine seas, land, and airspace.
No sooner had the Kasangga war games in Mindanao ended than the US military immediately launched Cope Thunder 2025, flying its warplanes not only within Philippine territory but also over the vast South China Sea, where rival Chinese forces are also present.
The CPP described the US’s relentless war games, which are justified under the guise of “defense cooperation” and “interoperability,” as nothing more than preparation for a major war. According to the CPP, the US is turning the Philippines into a launching pad and cannon fodder for its confrontation with China, burdening Filipinos with the weight of their conflict. Unlike other Southeast Asian countries, the US’s local puppets in the Philippines are fully carrying out its regional agenda.
“US imperialism is using its military bases in the Philippines to conduct these war games and provoke confrontation with China,” said Marco Valbuena, CPP’s chief information officer.
“The US military is steadily increasing the intensity and frequency of these war games to numb Filipinos to the presence of American troops, which blatantly trample on Philippine sovereignty and dignity,” Valbuena stated. “The US wants Filipinos to get used to the display of its war machinery, so they won’t notice how the country is being pushed ever closer to the brink of a real US war against China.”
“Filipinos must, therefore, never tire of standing up, resisting, and criticizing the endless US war games in the Philippines, the secret positioning of US destructive weapons, the presence of thousands of American troops, and the use of the country as a springboard for their imperialist war,” Valbuena added.
“The Philippines is viewed as a pariah in Southeast Asia because the Marcos puppet government allows its American imperialist master to use the country to provoke war in the region,” Valbuena said.
“Marcos’s subservience to the US, along with his blustering defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro and General Brawner, who both merely echo everything their American master says, is truly detestable,” Valbuena insisted. “They are showing the world that the AFP is a US mercenary army, used to suppress patriotic Filipino resistance and to stoke war with China.”
“The so-called ‘mutual defense,’ supposedly ironclad, is a sham,” Valbuena said. “The endless war games—Balikatan, Kasangga, Kamandag, Cope Thunder, and others—only serve US interests and show no concern for the more than 100 million Filipinos who will surely suffer in a brutal and highly destructive war between two imperialist powers.”
“The Filipino people must not allow the puppet Marcos regime to sacrifice millions of Filipinos on the altar of US wars of aggression,” Valbuena concluded.
“US troops, weapons, and military bases must be expelled from the Philippines as soon as possible. The country must pursue a truly independent foreign policy that promotes peaceful resolution of disputes and oppose the US’s imperialist war, paving the way for peaceful coexistence among the peoples of Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.”
