International Coalition For Human Rights in the Philippines
Statement
Sept 16, 2024
September 16th marks the anniversary of the historic day in 1991 when a mass movement in the Philippines successfully expelled the United States’ military bases from its islands. The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) celebrates this feat with the Filipino people, seeing hundreds of thousands of people rallying in the streets. ICHRP also decries the subsequent efforts of the US to reassert its military presence and neo-colonial domination over the Philippines through unequal military agreements.
Under the 1947 Military Bases Agreement, the US seized around 108,500 hectares of land to establish at least 23 major military bases in the Philippines. These bases wrought havoc upon the lives and livelihoods of the Filipino people, resulting in large-scale environmental contamination, violence against women and children, the destruction of indigenous ancestral lands, among others. In the face of the devastating impacts of US bases on Philippine soil, the Filipino people organized themselves to expel the US military bases from their homeland. In 1991, building from the momentum of previous mass actions, the people rallied to push the Philippine Senate to reject then President Cory Aquino’s Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Security, which would have extended the stay of US military bases in the Philippines for another 10 years.
While ICHRP marks the victory of the people’s movement to shutter US military bases, we denounce the subsequent unequal military agreements which the US-GRP have signed to overcome the expulsion of 1991. The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) was signed in 1999 allowing for the entry of an unlimited number of US troops, the indefinite presence of Special Operations Forces in Mindanao, and other provisions undermining Philippine national sovereignty. The US further entrenched its military presence in the Philippines with the Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) which was signed in 2014, permitting the construction and operation of military facilities by US troops and the constant rotation of US troops through the islands. Now, at least nine additional military bases in the country are being built through EDCA.
These unequal military agreements have once again effectively rendered the Philippines a military outpost for the United States. Notably, the Philippines is also the top recipient of US military aid in the region, and the puppet government uses these resources and weapons to commit war crimes and human rights violations against its own people. While the names and specifics of such military agreements and forms of cooperation with the US have changed over time, their impact has stayed the same: trampling Philippines’ national sovereignty, violation of their right to self-determination and the destruction of Filipino land, life, and livelihoods in service of US interests.
Historically, wherever and whenever the US has imposed military domination upon the Philippines, the Filipino people have fought back. The Filipino people have time and time again shown their strength through building mass movements. This includes EDSA I and EDSA II – which deposed two fascist presidents; the successful movement in the 90’s to expel US bases; and the ongoing resistance against violence by the current US-Marcos Jr. puppet regime.
Currently, the Filipino people are facing growing US war provocations against China, placing the Philippines in the cross-hairs of the US-China conflict.
In April 2024, the US military began deploying in the Indo-Pacific a new intermediate-range land-based missile system, known as Typhoon which includes Tomahawk cruise missiles, Supersonic Standard Missile-6 (SM-06) multipurpose interceptor missiles and the Mark 41 vertical group-based systems. This is the first time that the US has introduced offensive land- based mid-range missile systems anywhere in the world since it unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty with Russia in 2019. The treaty had banned the deployment of such systems.
The offensive Typhoon system of missiles currently installed in Northern Luzon has a range of 1600 kilometers, capable of reaching the east coast of China, the Taiwan strait and military bases in mainland China. The deployment of these once banned systems is a dangerous escalation in the Eastern pacific.
Through increased military aid, joint exercises and arms transfers, the United States is making the Filipino people more vulnerable to the impacts of war with China. The vortex of increasing US military presence in the Philippines is also drawing in US allies, as Japan, Australia, Canada, France, the UK, New Zealand and most recently Germany are all developing military agreements and increasing rotational troops in the Philippines. The 33rd anniversary of this historic victory serves as a potent reminder of what can happen when people come together to assert their collective power and opposition to a foreign occupying power. As US-led militarization of the Philippines is heightened, ICHRP calls on people across the globe to join the Filipino people’s demand for self-determination and oppose US military presence and intervention in the Philippines.
