By CPP Information Bureau
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today said the ten-day Balikatan 2012 military exercises conducted by the US military with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in various parts of the country “has further strengthened the US’ foothold in the Philippines and resulted in the further abasement of Philippine sovereignty.”
“Through the Balikatan 2012 exercises, the US imperialists once again demonstrated that the Philippines is its military stronghold which it will make use of in line with its geo-political aim of furthering its hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region,” said the CPP.
“For ten days, 4,500 American soldiers freely moved around the country for war games, conducted counter-guerrilla trainings, live-fire exercises and intelligence operations and carried out power-projection operations in the South China Sea.” American soldiers were able to conduct these types of activities in Cavite, Palawan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga and Tarlac provinces.
“In a nauseating display of condescension, American soldiers also carried out so-called socio-civic activities to build schools and provide books, with the self-serving objective of winning the sentiments of the Filipino people,” said the CPP.
“The media-covered distribution of notebooks and school-building repairs by American soldiers sought to camouflage the outright trampling of Philippine sovereignty in the same way that American occupation soldiers of the early 1900s gave away candies and chocolates to placate the Filipino people’s anger over the massacres committed in the course of the subjugation and colonization of the Philippines.”
“Demonstrating its subservience, the Aquino regime allowed American soldiers to make use of Philippine territory in full contempt of Philippine sovereignty,” said the CPP. “Aquino is allowing the US imperialists to make full use of the Philippines as a pawn in its hegemonism, even stoking tensions with China and risking an armed confrontation, to justify the deployment of American warships in the South China Sea.”
“Aquino is exhibiting complete subservience to the US in exchange for the ‘privilege’ of purchasing a few obsolete second-hand war materiél from the US military’s scrapyard.”