The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) strongly opposes the growing web of war provocations being spun by US imperialism across the Asia Pacific. The recent visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba to the Philippines—following the trilateral military framework forged last year between the United States, Japan, and the Marcos Jr. regime—marks another thread in this dangerous imperialist design. The so-called “Strengthened Strategic Partnership” is not about mutual security, but about tightening a US-led military net aimed at ensnaring China in an inter-imperialist conflict. Washington spins this web of alliances and agreements, hoping China will fall into its trap of war provocations—but it is the Filipino people who will ultimately be sacrificed as collateral damage in a war that does not serve their interest.

For decades, the US has manipulated regional tensions to maintain its military dominance in East and Southeast Asia, and today’s developments are a continuation of that imperialist legacy. Japan, under the pretext of “collective self-defense” and “regional peace”, has systematically reversed its post-World War II pacifist constitution, rearmed its military, and expanded its reach across the region at the behest of Washington. Japan’s increasing involvement in military pacts, including this trilateral agreement with the Philippines and the US, does not serve the interests of the Filipino people, but the strategic ambitions of the US to encircle and contain China.

The Marcos Jr. regime, a willing accomplice to US imperialist dictates, is shamelessly dragging the Filipino people into this growing web of war provocations. Most recently, the regime has moved to finalize a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with New Zealand, set to be signed on April 30. Like the existing VFA with the United States, this new agreement with New Zealand will allow their troops to enter, stay, and operate within the Philippines under the pretense of joint exercises, humanitarian missions, and disaster response. But in reality, it is meant to provide a formal excuse for permanent foreign military presence serving the broader US strategy of military encirclement in Asia. This is not an act of national defense, but  clear example of subservience to US imperialist warmongering. The Philippines is once again being turned into a staging platform for foreign intervention and a pawn in the inter-imperialist rivalry between US and China.

Though portrayed as mutually exclusive thus bilateral, these military alliances and so-called security cooperation agreements are part of a coordinated framework to expand and consolidate US military presence in the region—a strategy vital to the US pivot to Asia and its containment policy against China. From Japan and New Zealand, Australia to South Korea and the Philippines, the US is systematically repurposing its post-WWII military alliances to maintain its hegemony amid its ongoing strategic decline.

This expanding network of military partnerships undermines national sovereignty, escalates the risk of conflict, and makes the Philippines a frontline pawn in a brewing inter-imperialist confrontation. It serves neither peace nor development. The Filipino people must oppose these unequal military treaties and reaffirm our national independence and right to chart our own course free from foreign domination and imperialist subjugation.

As the US lays the groundwork for war, the Filipino people wage their own war of liberation. In the countryside, the revolutionary movement steadily advances the people’s democratic revolution, fighting for genuine land reform, national industrialization, and a truly sovereign and democratic society. This path to just and lasting peace entails the overthrow of the semicolonial and semifeudal system and the dismantling of imperialist control over our land, our seas, and our future.

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