The Philippines has remained under US imperialist control even after its so-called independence in 1946. Far from achieving genuine independence, the country has been bound to US interests, mainly through lopsided economic and military agreements. Successive regimes backed by the political bureaucracy, comprador big bourgeoisie, big landlords and US big businesses in command of the economy, and a subservient armed forces, the country has remained fundamentally a US puppet state.
US military dominance has been key to maintaining the neocolonial puppet state. The 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) legalized US military presence, subordinating Philippine defense and foreign policy to US objectives. Even after the 1986 ouster of the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship and the new constitution banning foreign bases, the US quickly reasserted itself through the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). These agreements essentially allowed with more intensity the return and protection of US military facilities, troops and storage of US weapons to the country.
But not since the Marcos Jr. regime took power have US military intervention and operations been more pronounced, flagrant and violative of the Filipino people’ independence, sovereignty and the country’s territorial integrity. With the penchant of the US to instigate wars of aggression, they use the maritime disputes of China in the West Philippine Sea as justification for more US interventionism. But China’s incursions in Philippine waters can and should be resolved through diplomacy, instead of warmongering.
A recent incident underscored the danger of this unchecked US military presence. On February 6, a US surveillance aircraft (a Beechcraft King Air 300 with registry number N349CA) contracted by the Pentagon crashed in a rice field in Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur, killing a US Marine and three contractors. The US Indo-Pacific Command admitted the aircraft was conducting surveillance “at the request of our Philippine allies.” This raised questions—why was such an operation happening in Mindanao, far from the supposed China conflict zones?
The contradiction is stark: while warning about Chinese spying, the Marcos Jr. regime allows US forces to freely operate across Philippine territory, making the country a launchpad for US war games. In 2023 alone, US warships brazenly sailed through sovereign waters, troops staged “humanitarian” missions as a cover for military
expansion, and new facilities were built for exclusive US use.
US military actions and plans that violate PH sovereignty
Last year saw several incidents and actions involving the US military that made a mockery of Philippine sovereignty. Last December 26, the US Carrier Strike Group One brazenly traversed Philippine sovereign waters between Leyte and Mindanao, the Pacific en route to the West Philippine Sea. The US naval formation, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, is a war behemoth capable of carrying a massive nuclear arsenal. It has a flotilla of war vessels including the USS William P. Lawrence (DDG 110), USS Sterett (DDG 104), and USS Princeton (CG 59).
Earlier in July, the US Naval Ship City of Bismarck docked at Legazpi City carrying 500 American, Japanese and South Korean soldiers as part of US military operations to normalize the permanent presence of foreign troops in the country. The foreign troops conducted so-called humanitarian assistance and disaster response as cover to their unwanted presence in the country. In the same month, the Marcos regime spent ₱170 million to construct a runway and military facility at Balabac island in Palawan for use of US military forces. The US plans to use this southernmost island of Palawan as a military base to preposition its weapons and troops, in line with its strategy to contain the growth of its imperialist rival China.
The Marcos Jr. regime also plans to establish a US naval base at the 3,000-hectare PHIVIDEC Industrial Estate in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental, just outside Cagayan de Oro City. The Tagoloan naval base will be another US military facility camouflaged as a military base of the Philippine armed forces. It will complement the US facilities situated at the Lumbia airport in Cagayan de Oro, which is an “agreed location” under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). It will expand the base of operations of US military forces in northern Mindanao, to complement their troop presence in Western Mindanao, in the central Visayas area, and throughout Luzon and allow easy access for US troops and military equipment to be used in counterinsurgency operations in the heart of Mindanao. The US has been using Mindanao as a “laboratory” for its warfare.
Such expansions are not just about China. They are also aimed at suppressing the revolutionary armed struggle led by the CPP. The brutal 2022 extrajudicial killing of revolutionary leaders Ka Benny Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, overseen by US military advisers, confirms the deep role of the US in “counterinsurgency” operations.
US interference goes even further. In November 2023, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revealed that US forces were directing Philippine naval operations in Ayungin Shoal through a Command and Control Fusion Center embedded in the AFP’s Western Command—despite not being covered by EDCA, making this presence illegal under Philippine laws.
To boost these US operations and facilities, secure the further loyalty of the Marcos Jr. regime and its puppet armed forces, and further use the country as a tool for war preparations and provocations, the US has recently pledged $500 million in military financing.
To tighten control, the US pledged $500 million in military aid to the Marcos regime. But this “aid” is conditional: the US dictates what weapons are acquired and where they go, ensuring continued dependence and military subordination. The CPP denounced this as a scheme to dump outdated US weapons while bolstering state terror and human rights violations in the Philippines.
US imperialism together with the Marcos puppet regime, and with their arsenal of weaponry and troops appear to be invincible, but the great Mao Zedong and the victory of the Chinese Communist Party in China in 1949, and the humiliating defeat of US imperialism by the National Liberation Front of Vietnam in 1975, have proven what Mao had said, that US imperialism is a mere paper tiger. The Philippine armed evolutionary movement led by the CPP and NPA will once more prove the correctness of Mao’s description of US imperialism.
The great Prof. Jose Maria Sison reminds us, however, that great challenges lie ahead in defeating US imperialism. He stressed: “The resolute leadership in the national resistance must have a general political line to unite the broad masses of the people against the foreign aggressors and their puppets and must have the correct strategy and tactics to make the enemy bleed from a thousand wounds. Extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare for as long as necessary is the way to fight the enemy that has the large military formations and the high-tech weaponry.
It is also the way to build a resistance government parallel to the puppet government of the aggressors and lay the basis for the larger units for mobile guerrilla warfare, which will in turn develop into the strategic offensive to clinch total victory. The enemy has expensive high-tech weaponry but his best weapons in the sky can be brought down by far cheaper means, like the Vietnamese bringing down 10,000 US helicopters and other aircraft in 1969 and the Afghan mujahedin bringing down the Soviet planes with the US-made Stinger.”
“Most decisive in the resistance against the militarily superior but unjust enemy is to have the participation and support of the broad masses of the people. To obtain this, the leadership of the resistance must have the correct political line to arouse, organize and mobilize the people and to build alliances of definite patriotic parties, mass formations and communities,” Sison exhorted.#
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is the revolutionary united front organization of the Filipino people fighting for national freedom and for the democratic rights of the people. The NDFP seeks to develop and coordinate all progressive classes, sectors and forces in the Filipino people’s struggle to end the rule of US imperialism and its local allies of big landlords and compradors, and attain national and social liberation.