November 29, 2024. The revolutionary mass movement of Filipinos overseas represented by Compatriots-NDFP denounces the signing of the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and opening of the Combined Coordination Center (CCC) between the United States and the Philippines. Both were announced in quick succession during U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to the country last week.
The GSOMIA allows the exchange of highly confidential military intelligence that would also pave the way for access to more sophisticated weapons from the U.S., including missile systems. The CCC on the other hand would operate as de facto U.S. base within Camp Aguinaldo, similar to other bases established under the unequal Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). Both the GSOMIA and CCC are being touted as major steps to secure the Philippines from aggressive attacks from China as well as provide humanitarian assistance. In reality, these moves will only serve to drag the Philippines and the Filipino people into a U.S.-provoked war with China, as well as further intensify the state’s counterinsurgency against the Filipino people’s just revolution for national and social liberation.
We are not naive to the fact that the U.S. has been ramping up its military support to the Philippines so that it can supposedly crush the People’s Democratic Revolution and focus its efforts on “external defense” against China. Rather than bring safety and security, the masses will be placed in further danger, especially those in the countryside where the sharing of intelligence and arms has been weaponized against civilian communities and the people’s army with no distinction. The establishment of a de facto U.S. base in the heart of Manila and the ability to bring in more dangerous U.S. weapons only makes the Philippines a bigger target for China, as Chinese officials had already warned when the U.S. positioned a Typhon missile system in Ilocos for the 2024 Balikatan War Games.
Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr.’s statement that the new agreement and center would allow the Filipino people “the freedom to do what one wants without being a stooge of what party have you” is a bare-faced lie. The GSOMIA, CCC, and all other forms of U.S. military intervention and agreements put the Philippines further under the boot of U.S. imperialism, the Filipino people’s sworn enemy. Our freedom can only be achieved through national democratic revolution and by ousting US Imperialism from our homeland. Filipinos overseas, join the fight for a Philippines free from U.S. intervention and for a country that we can return home to without the threat of U.S. backed counterinsurgency and war!