Marcos out of D.C.! U.S. Out of the Philippines!
On April 11th - Marcos Jr. returns to the U.S. to attend the first ever trilateral meeting between the US, Philippines and Japan. While Filipino farmers suffer from droughts brought on by El Niño, workers and their families are impacted by the extreme heat and fisher folk are threatened by the presence of war ships and reclamation projects - the Philippine President continues to create deals with two imperialist powers, securing his own wealth and catering to the interests of the few ruling elite instead of the majority of the Filipino population.
GABRIELA USA vehemently condemns Marco’s presence in the U.S. and the trilateral meeting with President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida. They claim that the conversations and agreements being held in the White House will discuss how the countries will push forward economic growth, clean energy, climate cooperation and maintain a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” but for whom will this actually benefit? In reality, this trilateral alliance is a strategy for the U.S. to maintain its dominance in the Asia Pacific, posturing up against China’s military and economy.
Who will benefit if the Philippines is dragged into a war with China? Who will be the first sacrifice, first bloodshed for this war? Who will experience the ongoing exploitation at military bases, on the battlefields?
History has shown that Filipino women have always been used as cannon fodder for imperialist wars. Wherever US military bases are built, the sex trade industry thrives. Filipino women are trafficked, both in and out of the Philippines, to these bases to be exploited and abused by off-duty US soldiers. Women of working class, urban poor & peasant backgrounds are heavily impacted by this as they are either manipulated, sold or have no other choice but to go into this industry because the economic crisis in the Philippines is so dire and there is no decent or well-paying work for Filipino women. Additionally, because of the unequal military agreements & semi-colonial relationship that the Philippines has with the US, Filipino women, and sometimes even children, are vulnerable to abuse, sexual violence and even death at the hands of US soldiers who are able to walk away with no repercussions for their crimes. Jennifer Laude, a trans woman who was strangled to death by US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton in 2014, still receives no justice today because the Visiting Forces Agreement allowed the US to save their soldier from facing his crime! GABRIELA refuses to let this cycle continue to attack our people and we demand that the people’s needs be genuinely met.
Bongbong Marcos Jr, a traitor to his own people, would rather go on a personal world tour rather than deal with the economic crisis that the people are bearing! While our people are starving, struggling to find work, lacking access to basic healthcare & education, Marcos & his lackeys’ only efforts have been to pursue the Charter Change or Cha-Cha, which will amend the Philippine Constitution and open our economy up to 100% foreign ownership. However, foreign ownership will not solve the economic crisis. It will only allow more foreign corporations to exploit our people for cheap labor, reinforce the pattern of forced migration that separates our families and leave the Philippines dependent on other countries to survive. What we really need is national industrialization, living wages, improvement of social services, genuine agrarian reform and a sovereign country!
GABRIELA USA sees beyond the empty words of Marcos, Biden and Kishida. We see how our people, especially Filipino women, are vulnerable to the threat of imperialist war in the Asia Pacific. We stand with the masses of Japan and the US who see the useless military spending and the threat that war poses on all of us. We refuse to let our people become pawns of war and for another generation of Filipino women to be turned into “comfort women” or sex slaves by US militarization. We call on all Filipino women to take a stand against our country and people being dragged into another war by the US and to fight against imperialist aggression!
Never forget the violent history of the imperialist World Wars! Women and children face the brunt of U.S. Militarization in the Philippines.
US Out of the Asia-Pacific, U.S. Out of Everywhere!
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