Pagbutlak

To truly commemorate Araw ng Kagitingan, we must denounce the state and military’s uncritical obedience to US imperialism. There is true valor to be found in our people’s struggle, not in subservience to foreign powers.

Araw ng Kagitingan is a holiday that commemorates the Fall of Bataan and the Bataan Death March during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II. The Fall of Bataan saw around 100,000 Filipino and American soldiers killed by Japanese forces, and a further 18,000 died from starvation, exhaustion, malnutrition, or execution during the Death March. In the face of Japanese imperialist ambitions in Southeast Asia, Filipinos and Americans waged a guerrilla campaign in various forms to deprive the Japanese of complete dominion over the Philippines.

However, the spirit of valor of the Filipino people—borne out of the desire to liberate the country from the clutches of Imperial Japan—has been tainted by the ironic status of the Philippine military and police today. As has been the case since the American occupation, these institutions have oppressed the Filipino people, upholding a mercenary tradition in service of American imperialism, the hacienderos, and the big comprador bourgeoisie. State forces in the Philippines have long been instrumental in suppressing the democratic and nationalist aspirations of the Filipino people, preserving the status quo’s grip over the country’s raw materials and the labor of workers and peasants.

With Balikatan 2025 scheduled for late April to mid-May, the conditions of imperialist control in the Philippines are set to worsen. The United States (US), along with its allies (read: vassals), continues its policy of simultaneously provoking the aggressive imperialist tiger that is China while sharpening the bloodlust of Filipino state forces—encouraging the abduction and killing of their own people in the name of US imperialism. Last year’s Balikatan exercises resulted in attacks and forced relocation of communities, environmental destruction, and the positioning of the Philippines as a staging ground for an inter-imperialist war in the South China Sea. The irony is stark: our navy and coast guard cower before the Chinese Coast Guard’s attacks on our fisherfolk in the West Philippine Sea, while the Philippine Army persists in the state’s campaign of violence against farmers, organizers, and servants of the people in the countryside. There is no valor in a military that upholds a foreign policy subservient to the US.

Bongbong Marcos is simply replicating the policies of his dictator father—and those of his predecessors—by maintaining a foreign policy that lacks independence, a military that serves foreign interests, and economic policies that fail to uplift the masses. This is not to say that dislodging American hegemony requires aligning with China. No—a truly independent foreign policy does not take sides in inter-imperialist conflicts. A truly independent military serves the interests of the people, not the politico-economic elite and its imperialist overlords. A genuinely pro-people economic policy dismantles dependence on foreign capital and breaks the imperialist chokehold on our aspirations for national industrialization and genuine agrarian reform.

To truly commemorate Araw ng Kagitingan, we must denounce the state and military’s uncritical obedience to US imperialism. There is true valor to be found in our people’s struggle, not in subservience to foreign powers.

To the dear reader of this article, I enjoin you—along with all progressive forces in UP Visayas, Panay, and the broader Philippines—to denounce Balikatan 2025, denounce US imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism, and denounce state attacks on our people. The Philippines must—and shall—be set free from its shackles, forged by the hammer and anvil of imperialism. Through the people’s democratic struggle, we shall soon tread our own path, free from the claws of Washington and Beijing!

Imperyalismo, ibagsak!
Pyudalismo, ibagsak!
Burukrata-kapitalismo, ibagsak!

#JunkVFA
#JunkEDCA
#USTroopsOutNow
#DownWithUSImperialism

Klement Gargarita is a History instructor at the History Division, Department of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences, UP Los Baños. He is a UP Visayas BA History graduate with research interests in Visayan history, labor and language history, and Southeast Asian leftist parties and mass movements.