#exercise balikatan

[catdotjpeg]

On Monday, Anakbayan Queens joined 60 Filipinos & members of anti-war organizations in Times Square to protest the start of the largest-ever joint Philippines-U.S. military exercises, or Balikatan exercises. The exercises involve 12,000 u.s. troops, 5,000 Filipino troops, & 111 Australian troops, & will include live-fire in the contested West Philippine Sea. This year’s annual military exercises begin two months after Marcos Jr. agreed to grant u.s. troops access to 4 additional bases in the PH. 

Dana from Anakbayan Manhattan spoke against the military industrial complex that exploits youth across both the u.s. & the Philippines. “How many Black & brown working class youth have been recruited & processed at this very office?” they asked. “How many of our classmates, friends, relatives, neighbors have been recruited into a war machine that forces them to fight against the interests of their own people? Military recruiters lure our people in by offering to pay for our college education. But why is education so expensive in the first place?”

Protestors representing Filipino youth & students, women, LGBTQIA+ people, migrants, & workers from the Northeast region called for “money & food for education, not for wars & state repression” & the junking of legislation like the Visiting Forces Agreement and Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that allow the u.s. military to commandeer Filipino resources for their own political and economic gain.

We as AB Queens say u.s. out of the Philippines & all Asia Pacific! Funds for social services, not for war! End Balikatan & all imperialist military exercises! 

Photos taken by Marion Aguas and Zack Garlitos. 

-- Anakbayan Queens NY, 12 Apr 2023

[drone9futuristic]

US Army Tests Long-Endurance Drones and Balloons in the Philippines: Pushing Boundaries in Multi-Domain Operations

The US Army is actively exploring the potential of long-endurance drones and high-altitude balloons in the Indo-Pacific region. During the recent Balikatan military exercise in the Philippines (April 11-May 9, 2024), the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force (MDTF) utilized these innovative technologies to gather valuable data and experiment with their tactical applications.

[carlocarrasco]

Chinese vessels spotted near Balikatan training area off Palawan

Since it formally started on April 22, Balikatan 2024 resulted in several military exercises and activities involving armed elements of the Philippines, the United States and France. This of course caught the attention of China and according to a recent Philippine News Agency (PNA) news article, several Chinese vessels were spotted near a training area off Palawan. To put things in perspective,…

[milkboydotnet]

Condemn and resist US-led warmongering in Asia-Pacific! Support the Filipino people’s struggle for national liberation and democracy!

Robert Reid | Chairperson FFPS

The Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) condemns Marcos Jr. for surrendering Philippine sovereignty and putting the Filipino people in serious danger. We strongly oppose the continued US military build-up on Philippine soil as part of its war provocations against China, threatening to engulf the entire region into war. 

The ongoing Balikatan US war exercises in the Philippines involves 16,000 troops 11,000 of which are US soldiers, making it the biggest joint military drills to date.

The exercises are part of the US government’s first island chain strategy, which aims to encircle China by creating a fortified chain of US-controlled islands. Part of the exercises will take place on the strategic Batanes islands and Palawan. The Batanes islands being close to Taiwan, allows control over the strategic Bashi Channel. Palawan on the other hand borders the contested West Philippine Sea. From these strategic islands, the US is testing its new Typhon mid-range missile systems that have the capacity to hit China. 

With such military build-up in the first island chain, the US aims to provoke China into striking first, giving the US an excuse to go to war with its imperialist rival. 

US military build-up in the region only brings suffering to the Filipino people. The current Balikatan exercises and the presence of US troops in communities are disrupting the people’s livelihoods, who cannot access their crops, coasts and seas due to increased militarization. In combination with widespread landlessness and a vicious cycle of debt through feudal relations of production, which are aggravated by the current drought El Niño, and the unwillingness of the Marcos Jr. to address the root causes of their hardships, this pushes the majority of the Filipino people into increasingly desperate situations.

Furthermore, communities are traumatised due to the constant bombardment of low flying jets, aerial bombing campaigns and artillery shelling as part of the war drills. All this suffering however would pale in comparison to the catastrophe that would befall the Filipino people in the event of a full-pledged inter-imperialist war. 

One of the biggest obstacles preventing a US-China war in the region is the revolutionary movement in the Philippines. The revolutionary struggle that has roused and mobilized millions of Filipinos in clear opposition to US imperialist oppression and exploitation, and to the despotic ruling landed and comprador bourgeoisie classes, has forced the Philippine puppet government to deploy most of the US-directed AFP forces on ‘internal defence’ instead of ‘external defence’. 

The Filipino people’s resistance to foreign domination is a thorn in the eye of the US and its strategic interests, who have ordered Marcos Jr. to finish off the entire revolutionary movement before the end of the year. However, this is already the umpteenth extension of their deadline to the Government of the Philippines (GRP), as Marcos Jr. and his counterrevolutionary forces have failed to follow through on the previous deadline to end the revolutionary movement, just like all his predecessors including his dictator father Marcos Sr.

Since the US-directed “counterinsurgency” does not try to address the root causes that push the Filipino people to fight for national and social liberation, it can only fail in ending their armed struggle. It has only resulted in a fully-fledged war against the Filipino people. There have been increases in militarizations of rural communities and other violations of International Humanitarian Law, such as increased number of abductions, killings and bombings, to try and squash the revolutionary movement and all dissent through the most vicious means. 

As FFPS we vehemently stand with the Filipino people as they resist the fascist onslaught of the US-directed Marcos Jr. regime and fully support the demand of the Filipino people to dismantle US military bases in the Philippines and end US imperialist aggression and warmongering in the region. We stand with the Philippine revolutionary movement in advancing the national democratic revolution, recognizing that the Filipino people’s revolutionary war for national liberation and democracy is a concrete and essential contribution by the Filipino people to fighting imperialist war in the region.

End US aggression in the Philippines! Stop the bombings in the Philippines!  Militant action against US imperialist war-mongering! We support the Filipino aspiration: National Liberation against US imperialism! Support the advance of the Filipino people’s war for national liberation and democracy!

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Vijay Prashad

During Balikatan, the defense ministers of the four main nations met in Honolulu, Hawaii to discuss the political implications of these military exercises off the coast of China. Australia’s Richard Marles, Japan’s Kihara Minoru, the Philippines’ Gilberto Teodoro, and the United States’ Lloyd Austin met for their second meeting to discuss their collaboration in the region that they call the Indo-Pacific. It was at the edges of this meeting that the public relations teams of these ministers began to float the term “Squad” to refer to these four countries. While they did not formally announce the creation of a new bloc in East Asia, this new nickname intends to provide a de facto announcement of its existence.

[pannaginip]

News5 on Twitter @News5PH:

Nagprotesta ang mga mangingisda ng PAMALAKAYA sa tapat ng Camp Aguinaldo sa Quezon City nitong Biyernes, May 10. Tinutulan nila ang pagpatupad ng no-sail zone sa ilang bahagi ng Ilocos Sur at Zambales sa gitna ng Balikatan Exercise.

[The fisherfolk of PAMALAKAYA protested in front of Camp Aguinaldo in QC this Friday, May 10. They are opposing the implementation of the no-sail zones in several parts of Ilocos Sur and Zambales amidst the Balikatan Exercise.]

Anila, mahigit 13,000 mangingisda at tindero ng isda ang apektado dahil sa no-sail zone.

[According to them, more than 13k fisherfolk and fish vendors will be affected by the no-sail zones.]

Pinangambahan din nila ang maaaring epekto ng katatapos lang na joint military exercises sa marine ecosystem.

[They are also worried about the possible effects the joint military exercises may have on the marine ecosystem.]

📷: PAMALAKAYA (Facebook)

2024 May 10

[rayjideguia]

On October 11, 2014, Jennifer Laude, a Filipino trans woman, was killed by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton, whose presence in Zambales was made possible by the Visiting Forces Agreement. 

In September 2020, then President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his misogyny and whose regime was marked by extrajudicial killings from his drug war and anti-communist crusade, granted Pemberton absolute pardon, cutting short his time served by four years. Months prior in the same year, during the height of the pandemic, the Congress railroaded the passing of the anti-terrorism bill amidst rampant red-tagging of activists and dissidents; LGBTQIA+ protesters were arrested, detained, and harassed by police. 

Under the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the largest Balikatan Exercise took place in 2023, a military exercise that was bolstered by counterterrorism training since the War on Terror campaign by the US. His father, former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., serving as the blueprint of violence and repression for Duterte, formalized the export of Filipino labor through the 1974 Labor Code in an attempt to stimulate the struggling economy, resulting in the human trafficking of Filipinos to this day.

This is the political milieu that informs the narrative of “Balikbayan. Through the protagonist Stella, a trans woman, whose motivation is to find her missing sister Katrina, supposedly teaching in Texas but ended up as a victim of tokhang in the Philippines eleven years later, the play tackles the entanglements of the US War on Drugs and Terror, neoliberalism, and extrajudicial killings under the Duterte regime, and how women, both trans and cis, are subjugated and dehumanized by the same system.

Like our page and save the date! 

April 13, 2024, 7 PM @ IGB Gallery, UP Diliman 

#Balikbayan #Balikbayan2024

[todaysdocument]

U.S. Marine Corps Corporal Mathew S. Johnson makes friends with a goat and begins head-butt competitions between patrol training with the Filipino Army, during Exercise Balikatan 2003, on April 27, 2003. 

Record Group 330: Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense

Series: Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

Image description: Corporal Johnson bends down to headbutt the horns of a knee-high brown goat. Johnson’s fists are clenched.

[tanksandbeyond]

A Cadillac Gage Commando (left) and LAV-300 from the Philippine Marine Corps prior to a dry-fire rehearsal as part of Exercise Balikatan at Colonel Ernesto Ravina Air Base, Tarlac, Philippines, May 12th, 2018.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Barely a month after granting the Pentagon extensive access to key Philippine bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), Manila kicked off major wargames with its sole treaty ally that promise to raise China’s ire.

Earlier this week, the Philippines and the United States conducted their largest army exercises ever, with a special focus on fending off a potential full-scale invasion of the Southeast Asian island nation by a hostile power. [...] For the first time, Tokyo has also sent observers to the high-profile exercises amid ongoing plans to establish a new tripartite Japan-Philippine-US (JAPHUS) alliance. [...] According to one senior Philippine military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, the massive drills have an even more immediate crisis in mind. “It has a lot to do with Taiwan,” the AFP official said [...] Both Japan and Australia are also expected to participate in the exercises. Last month, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles announced that his country would be sending its largest contingent yet to the Balikatan wargames. Both US allies would play key roles in any Taiwan contingency. [...]

Last week, US State Department Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland visited Manila to coordinate the implementation of EDCA, which faces growing opposition in the Philippines including from governors of frontier provinces close to Taiwan where military bases are situated.

US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson has publicly argued that the expanded American presence in the country won’t provoke tensions with or retaliation from China. [...] The policy pivot and scale and emphasis of the joint exercises, however, has triggered a hot debate at the highest levels in Manila, with former president Rodrigo Duterte and presidential sister Senator Maria Imelda “Imee” Marcos warning of unwanted escalation in regional tensions vis-à-vis China. In a television interview last week, Duterte said “we are being made a platform for [American weapons]” and this would “make the Philippines vulnerable” to Chinese retaliation in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.

16 Mar 23

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LFS and other multisectoral youth organizations and student councils held a press conference against the 17,000-strong US-PH Balikatan military exercises, the largest ever in Philippine history. 

Youth leaders from different sectors--environment, women, indigenous people, farmers, LGBTQ, cultural workers--expressed their unity in resisting the military exercises, which they said will bring the PH closer to the brink of war amid the US-China conflict. 

-- League of Filipino Students, 4 Apr 2023

[elfilibusterismo]

largest ever balikatan exercises started today and the more i wish every imperialist american piece of shit to die and america to burn

[carlocarrasco]

Balikatan (US-Philippines joint military exercise) set to start on April 22, 2024

Balikatan, the annual joint military exercise of the Philippines and the United States of America, will officially begin on April 22 and last until May 10, 2024 with the participation of at least sixteen thousand troops, according to a Manila Bulletin news report. This year’s edition of Balikatan includes activities that will take place outside of the territorial waters of the Philippines. To…

[milkboydotnet]

Marcos Jr. sells out PH sovereignty for US war preparations vs China

NDF-International | National Democratic Front of the Philippines

April 10, 2024

Marcos Jr.’s trip to the United States for a trilateral summit with US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is an utter and complete sell-out of Philippine sovereignty to US war designs in Asia. The so-called “trilateral summit” is set to discuss “maritime security cooperation” between the three countries.

Marcos Jr. is willingly offering the Philippine archipelago to serve as a ‘theater of war’ by allowing the US to position its military arsenal on land, sea, and air. The Philippines is a crucial piece in the “US Island Chain strategy” to contain China. The Philippines’ strategic location allows the US to constrict regional waterways and position readily deployable military air power in close proximity to China. In order to achieve its objectives, the US is escalating war preparations in the region by encouraging Japan and other imperialist allies to join the geopolitical chess game.

In the said trilateral meeting, Marcos Jr. seeks to further increase US military footprint in Philippine soil while talks are underway with Japan for a reciprocal access agreement that will allow Japanese military presence in the country. In fact, preparations are already ongoing for the biggest Balikatan Exercises in history which is expected to draw at least 16,000 troops to participate. The Balikatan war games this year aims to test the so-called ‘Comprehensive Archipelagic Defense Concept (CDAC)’ patterned after US imperialist war plans in the region. These actions form part of the US strategy to provoke China into “firing the first shot” demonstrating the US government’s bloodthirst.

On the other hand, Marcos Jr.’s actions prove his outright subservience to US imperialist war preparations and his readiness to drag the Filipino people in the middle of a brewing inter-imperialist conflict. Marcos Jr. must be held accountable for his reprehensible sell-out of Philippine sovereignty and his blatant disregard for the lives of the Filipino masses. More importantly, the Biden administration must be denounced for its continued exportation of wars of aggression from Ukraine to Palestine and now using the Philippines as a pawn in its attempt to stifle China’s growing influence.