Aquino Aligns with U.S. Military Build-Up in Asia-Pacific, a Threat to Peace in the Region
Filipino-Americans across the U.S., under the banner of BAYAN USA, express condemnation and disgust over the efforts of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “Noy-Noy” Aquino III to accommodate the “new” U.S. defense strategy that entails a so-called “rebalance to Asia”, including an increase in U.S. military presence in the Philippines. BAYAN USA also denounces the U.S. government’s Cold War-style media offensive against economic rival China as a pretext to justify its gross expansion of U.S. military powers in the Asia-Pacific in order to increase U.S. economic, political, and military investments in the region.
Economically-Motivated
Under neoliberalism, the U.S. economy is largely dependent on the Pacific Rim, particularly because of its export position. In 2010, the 21 economies that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum accounted for 61% of U.S. exports ($775 billion) and 37% of private services exports ($205 billion). The U.S. economy’s export position in the region accounts for nearly 5 million U.S. jobs. But for countries such as the Philippines, the U.S. investment and export position is at the heart of deepening crisis and poverty due to lack of sovereign claim to natural resources and territory. In line with their national interests, countries like the Philippines must wage fierce struggles against U.S. interventionism in order to assert their right to chart their own economic and political paths.
With China’s economic growth threatening U.S. dominion over the region, and with Obama’s push for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that would outline a US-dominated free trade zone in the region, the U.S. government has announced it will shift its military focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan and renew its commitment to assert its position in Asia-Pacific. It has found a reliable stooge in the Aquino government. Recent negotiations framed as a Strategic Dialogue between top Washington security and defense officials and the Aquino administration have laid the ground work for the consolidation of the Philippines as a key U.S. military base location, serving as a permanent staging ground for U.S. military offensives, storage space for surveillance drones, resupply and refueling station for U.S. warships and aircrafts, as well as rest and recreational facility for U.S. servicemen.
In addition to violating Philippine national sovereignty, Aquino’s compliance in accommodating U.S. saber-rattling seeks to undo the 1991 landmark decision of the Philippine Senate to reject the U.S. bases treaty that essentially shut down permanent U.S. military bases in Subic Bay and Clark Air Field by once again opening these ports for indefinite and “rotational” basing of U.S. troops and throughout the archipelago.
Aquino Positions the Philippines in the Crossfire
Not only does the Aquino government reach an all-time high in the barometer of U.S. puppetry with these negotiations, it is aligning the Philippines with a military scheme that will threaten peace in the entire Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. government, driven by its war-dependent economy, is expanding its military presence in Asia-Pacific region under the rhetoric of security in the South China Sea and in particular the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands, when in fact it seeks an excuse to provoke military aggression and create a war-like situation against China that will boost its military-industrial complex at the expense of surrounding countries. Such compliance on the Aquino government’s part will surely position the Filipino people in the middle of the crossfire.
Starting with the Philippine-American War of 1899, which marked the advent of U.S. imperialism onto the global stage at the turn of the 20th century, 113 years of U.S. geopolitical strategy in the region has left the Philippines with a tragic history and ongoing reality of U.S. military infestation whose social costs have burdened its people with untold pain and misery. From hosting the largest U.S. permanent foreign military bases to succumbing to the onerous US-RP Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)—the mother of all unequal military treaties and agreements—to the virtually permanent Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), over one century of U.S. military presence in the country has been directly linked to the indiscriminate killings, rape and other sexual offenses, massive displacement of rural communities, waste, disease, and other forms of human rights abuses.
Call for Resistance & Solidarity
As Filipinos in the U.S., BAYAN USA sees concretely how both the Aquino and Obama governments—guardians of financial oligarchy—are acting in betrayal of the broad interest of the Filipino and American peoples. Just as the poor grow poorer in the Philippines under Aquino’s failed economic policies, so are the working people in the U.S. forced to carry the heavy burden of paying for a debt crisis they did not create. As people’s resistance to the intolerable 1% escalates amidst the crisis, BAYAN USA joins the call for greater solidarity between people in the U.S. struggling against the U.S. military-industrial complex and for economic equality and the Filipino people’s ongoing struggle for genuine national independence and democracy. This must translate to greater efforts to expose and oppose the U.S. geopolitical strategy in the Asia-Pacific region as a scheme of the purveyors of crisis and war to maintain tight control over the region’s wealth. People’s resistance and firm solidarity are key in our efforts to frustrate U.S. interventionism in the region!
U.S. OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES!
U.S. OUT OF ASIA!
JUNK THE US-RP MUTUAL DEFENSE TREATY!
JUNK THE US-RP VISITING FORCES AGREEMENT!
UPHOLD PHILIPPINE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
Reference:
Bernadette Ellorin
Chairperson, BAYAN USA
— BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 15 progressive Filipino organizations in the U.S. representing youth, students, women, workers, artists, and human rights advocates. As the oldest and largest overseas chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S. For more information, visit www.bayanusa.org