Malaya Movement USA’s more than 1,000 Filipino members and even greater number of supporters vehemently condemn the Marcos Jr. state visit with U.S. President Joe Biden. This visit comes just days after the conclusion of the Balikatan Exercises where thousands of military forces engaged in military drills and exercises and just after the 2+2 ministerial dialogue between the US and the PH. These recent events contribute to the increasing tensions between China and the United States, with the Philippines and other countries in the region caught between the crossfires of two superpowers.

Malaya Movement USA is disturbed by the recent reports of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria Tiamzon alongside 8 others in August of 2022. What was initially reported by AFP as a rogue boat explosion has now been exposed as targeted war crimes including abduction, torture, brutal murder and cover up.

The Balikatan, or “shoulder-to-shoulder,” Exercises is an annual military event between the United States and the Philippines meant to reinforce the Philippines’ role as a U.S. military collaborator by increasing training, intelligence, and capacity to respond to external threats to U.S. interests in the Asia Pacific. In essence, the exercises are a theater for warfare and US military presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

The Malaya Movement USA unequivocally asserts Philippine sovereignty against the Balikatan Military Exercises between the Philippines and the United States. We in the Malaya Movement USA condemn any provocation for escalation of hostilities and war mongering between the two superpowers. It is on this basis that we stand firmly that the Philippines does not stand to gain from Balikatan.

The Malaya Movement USA stands in full solidarity with the striking jeepney drivers in the Philippines. We echo their demands of junking the Government’s so-called “jeepney modernization” program. We call on overseas Filipinos to mobilize support, moral and material, towards the striking jeepney drivers.

Malaya Movement USA condemns and opposes the current push to revise the 1987 Philippine Constitution. This effort is clearly self-serving, unnecessary and dangerous. We, in the Malaya Movement USA, call on the Filipino people to reject and oppose the current moves of the Marcos-Duterte regime to change the constitution.