End US war provocations in the Philippines!
Malaya Movement USA condemns the 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue on July 30, 2024 between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo and Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro. In this meeting, $500 million in US foreign military financing of the Philippine military was announced as part of the effort to supposedly strengthen US-PH defense priorities and “modernize” the Armed Forces of the Philippines. An additional $128 million is being allocated towards infrastructure projects on seven of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) bases.
The 2+2 meeting discussed the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Security Sensor Assistance Roadmap (SSAR), which will allow the US to further interfere in the Philippines’ internal security affairs through the enhanced sharing of military intelligence and dictating the Philippines’ procurement of military equipment. It will allow the Philippines to become more of a dumping ground of surplus US military assets.
These military agreements are bolstered by economic deals that aim to accelerate the plunder of the Philippines resources and minerals for war and profit. Emphasis is being placed on the Philippines’ strategic role in the semiconductor manufacturing, a key industry that is driving up tensions between the US and China.
These agreements will only escalate US war provocations against China, further dragging the Philippines into a war that the Filipino people do not want. The military aid package will also fuel the Marcos regime’s brutal counterinsurgency that has consisted of widespread US-backed war crimes and human rights violations such as the hamletting and bombing of civilian indigenous and peasant villages, red-tagging and illegal arrests of activists on trumped up charges, and extrajudicial killings of human rights advocates.
This $500 million allotment to the Philippines was proposed by Rep. Darrell Issa to be included in the recent $95 billion US National Security Supplemental which included $14 billion to support the genocide in Israel and $60 billion to continue the war in Ukraine. We condemn this significant increase from previous military aid to the Philippines as it sets a new precedent for increasing military funding and will inevitably result in more human rights violations.
War-mongering US senators are already pushing for continuous increases in military aid to the Philippines through the Philippine Enhanced Resilience Act or PERA Act, which includes a proposed allocation of $500 million in foreign military financing grants for each fiscal year from 2025 to 2029, reaching a total of $2.5 billion.
It is important to point out that these billions of dollars of military aid to the Philippines and other parts of the world are at the expense of people here in the United States. Currently, legislators are debating budget cuts to transportation, housing, education, and other social services while gaining bipartisan support for more military and defense funding. These decisions impact the lives of everyday, poor and working people of this country while the rich continue to make money off defense contracts and infrastructure projects.
Tomorrow on July 31, 2024, join us as we mobilize for a national day of action to call for an End US War Provocations in the Philippines. We call on people across the US to push your Congress representatives and senators to oppose the $500 million in foreign military aid to the Philippines and to reject the PERA Act. We urge them to instead support the Philippine Human Rights Act (PHRA), which would cut US funding to the Philippine military and police until they cease committing human rights violations and perpetrators are held accountable.
