Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said the Kasangga military exercises between Filipino and Australian troops is the latest manifestation of intensified US-led military interventionism in the country. It is bringing about increasing militarization of Luzon and the rest of the archipelago.
Kasangga is a stark reminder that provocative military drills using live fire are now being held throughout the year and across the country. We denounce the Marcos Jr government for allowing the US and its allies to use our territory as training ground and launching pad for their war projection.
Like the Balikatan and other military exercises, Kasangga is disruptive to the local population and endangers the safety and welfare of our people. Authorities prohibited sailing, fishing, and swimming activities for two days in Sitio Mainit and Sitio Camagong in Balogo, Pasacao, Camarines Sur. Local government was utilized to control the movement of farmers, fisherfolk and other residents who were told to stay in evacuation centers during the war drills in Ragay Gulf.
Kasangga wastes scarce public resources with the Philippines’ hosting such war exercises. Adding insult to injury, it undermines national sovereignty and security by allowing the Australian Defence Force to operate inside the country in support of the military operations and forward deployed bases of the US Armed Forces. It is not unthinkable that enemies of the US and its allies would target Philippine communities with active US military presence.
We are alarmed at the lack of transparency whether weapons and other military materiel used during these exercises are also being stored and deployed in other parts of the country. The exercises in the Bicol region could be a pretext to enable the illegal involvement of US and Australian forces in the brutal counterinsurgency operations of the Philippine military, which would intensify human rights violations and further militarization in rural communities. In the past two years, the so-called Luzon Economic Corridor (LEC) has led to greater military buildup in several provinces.
These war exercices further expose not just the subservience of the Marcos Jr government to the dictates of foreign military powers led by the US, but also its gravely misplaced priorities. Marcos is ready to sell out our national sovereignty and patrimony, escalate regional tensions, and drag the country into conflicts not of our making instead of laying out a comprehensive economic program that can boost local production, protect our domestic economy from external shocks and uplift the living conditions of our people. We continue to suffer from high oil prices and rising cost of living, and the impact of soaring inflation is acutely felt in the Bicol region, but the Marcos government continues to recklessly allot our fuel supply and limited resources for these unproductive and costly war exercises.
Bayan calls for stronger opposition to these war exercises as we reiterate the demand to remove all foreign military bases, facilities, and troops from our country. We call for the scrapping of the Visiting Forces Agreement signed by the Philippines with the US, Australia, Japan, and other countries.
We reiterate the call for the termination of the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty. We assert that the country should pursue an independent foreign policy in dealing with matters that involve disputes with other nations, instead of collaborating with our former colonizers and other powers allied with the US in turning the country into their war playground, testing ground, and storage for their weapons of mass destruction.
Bayan reminds local authorities to serve the people’s interest and not the geopolitical agenda of US imperialism. The July 4 “Philippine-American Friendship Day” will be marked with mass protest to highlight the people’s continuing struggle for genuine freedom and democracy.