Palestinians are commemorating the second anniversary of the Al-Aqsa Flood: a moment that rekindled collective memory of resistance, right to land, and the right to self-determination under occupation. This unfolds amid Israel’s continuing siege of Gaza: relentless bombings of civilian areas, systematic deprivation of food, water, and medicine, and what many have called an ongoing genocidal campaign to erase Palestinian life from its homeland. It is a reminder that the defense of land and life remains inseparable from the struggle against colonial and imperial domination.
On our shores, every October, Peasant Month is commemorated. Not merely as remembrance but as a call to confront the legacy of dispossession at home. On October 21, 1972, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. issued Presidential Decree No. 27, a fraudulent land reform program. Instead of redistributing land, it consolidated land monopoly, and impoverished entire rural communities in favor of capitalist schemes that deepened landlessness and poverty.
These intertwined histories of Palestinian and Filipino struggles reveal a shared reality: the enduring violence of imperialism and the defense of land as life. The link is not merely symbolic. The Philippine government’s deepening military ties with Israel make this solidarity all the more urgent. Over the past decade, the Philippines has procured weapons systems from Israeli defense firms, including Rafael’s SPYDER air defense batteries, Elbit’s ATMOS artillery and Hermes drones, and Shaldag-class fast patrol gunboats built under technology-transfer deals. In recent years, the Philippines has become one of Israel’s top customers in the global arms trade. The Philippines accounts for about 8.1% of Israel’s arms exports, making it the third-largest buyer after India and the United States.
The bombs that fall on Gaza and the militarization of the Philippine countryside are driven by the same imperialist machinery. From the Philippines to Palestine, from fields to frontlines, we share a common struggle: to break free from the chains of landlessness, fascist repression, and imperialist plunder, and to reclaim a future rooted in land, justice, and liberation.
Stop the genocide! Break the siege! No to imperialist wars of aggression!
