There can be no genuine friendship between an imperialist power and its neocolony. The relationship between US imperialism and the Philippines has been forged through colonial conquest, sustained by neocolonial domination, and today deepened by worsening forms of economic plunder and military intervention.
Since the grant of flag independence, Washington has presented itself as the Philippines’ “closest ally” while ensuring that our economy remains backward and dependent, our natural resources remain open to foreign exploitation and wanton plunder, and our territory serves as a strategic outpost for US geopolitical interests. All these by ensuring and propping up puppet regimes cultivated from the ranks of the economic and political elite or their surrogates.
Today, this highly unequal relationship has entered a dangerous new phase amid the sharpening rivalry between the US and China, with the Philippines becoming more critical than ever in US imperialism’s military and economic agenda and strategy in Asia.
This is evident in the unprecedented expansion of the US military presence and intervention under the Marcos Jr. puppet fascist regime. The rapid increase in EDCA sites, the year-long and expanding US-led war exercises in different provinces across the country, the deployment of advanced missile systems, drones, and intelligence-sharing facilities, and the establishment of permanent command structures all point to one objective: to turn the Philippines into a forward operating platform for US military power projection and future wars of aggression and intervention. These developments do not make Filipinos safer. Instead, they place our people squarely on the frontlines of an inter-imperialist conflict that is not of our own making.
At the same time, Washington’s economic agenda is becoming inseparable from its military ambitions. Projects such as the Luzon Economic Corridor and the US-led Pax Silica initiative are being marketed as “development” programs, yet they are fundamentally designed to secure strategic supply chains, strengthen the US defense-industrial base, and guarantee American access to the Philippines’ critical mineral wealth. The proposed Economic Security Zone in New Clark City exemplifies this strategy by integrating Philippine resources, infrastructure, and labor into supply chains serving US technological and military supremacy. Far from grandiose claims of developing the economy, these initiatives threaten to deepen foreign control over our economy while accelerating destructive mining, land grabbing, and environmental degradation.
The Marcos Jr. regime has treasonously facilitated this surrender of national sovereignty through agreements, legislation, and policies that prioritize foreign investors and US strategic interests over the welfare of the Filipino people. Instead of pursuing genuine national development and an independent foreign policy, it has chosen deeper subservience to Washington.
History teaches us that genuine independence will never be generously bestowed by any colonial or imperial power. Genuine independence can only be won through the determined and relentless struggle of generations against colonial and neocolonial domination. That same struggle continues today.
We must expose and reject the myth of “special friendship” with US imperialism. We must strengthen the struggle against US foreign military intervention, oppose US imperialist projects such as the Luzon Economic Corridor and Pax Silica’s Economic Security Zone, defend our national sovereignty and patrimony, and uphold an independent foreign policy that serves the interests of the Filipino people first and foremost. We must expose and oppose the fascist puppet regime of Marcos Jr. and all those who come after him.