By Mong Palatino, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general
Pulong Duterte accusing officials of the Marcos Jr. administration of serving the interests of a foreign power is the pot calling the kettle black.
Duterte’s concern about the servility of the Marcos Jr. administration to the dictates of Washington D.C. is hypocritical since his father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, has shown similar puppetry to Beijing.
Rodrigo Duterte did not assert the 2016 arbitral ruling to reject China’s absolute claim to sovereign rights over the whole of the South China Sea. His government even signed an onerous Memorandum of Agreement that would have allowed China to extract resources from our exclusive economic zone. Duterte’s subservience enabled China’s continuing harassment of our fishers and its aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea.
On the other hand, former President Duterte expanded the Balikatan and other military exercises with the US. Despite his anti-US posturing, he fell short of reviewing, much more revoking, lopsided military agreements with the US by the end of his term.
Pulong Duterte is highly critical of the deployment of the Typhon missile system in the Philippines. He conveniently glosses over the fact that Marcos Jr. justifies the intensified US military presence in the country by highlighting the disastrous legacy of Rodrigo Duterte’s supposed pivot to China.
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr. and his generals have treasonously colluded with the US government in establishing additional Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites and deploying US missile systems in north Luzon. These moves recklessly escalate tension in the region while endangering the health and safety of our people while surrendering our national sovereignty.
Marcos Jr. spouts the same rhetoric as Rodrigo Duterte when he claims to espouse an independent foreign policy. This is pure hogwash since he equates our national interest with the rabid promotion of the geopolitical agenda of his US imperialist master. The Marcos Jr. government parrots the US propaganda that US military presence serves as deterrence to Chinese military build up, and that the only way for the Philippines to defend its territory is to rely on its former colonial ruler.
The word war between the Dutertes and the Marcoses has nothing to do with patriotism. It is all about whose faction is more shameful in selling out the country’s sovereignty, security, and patrimony to their foreign patrons.
US imperialism represents the biggest and continuing threat to peace, democracy, and development, not just in the Asia Pacific region, but in the entire world. We should learn the lessons of history and unite and continue to resist US meddling in our internal affairs.
We call on the Filipino people to stand for genuine independence by pushing for the dismantling of US bases and removal of US troops, the immediate removal of the Typhon missile system, the scrapping of lopsided military deals, and the demilitarization of the South China Sea. We also should demand that China stop preventing Filipino fisherfolk from fishing in our own EEZ. Our maritime dispute with China must be resolved through diplomatic means. Relying on US military might to assert our maritime rights in the West Philippine Sea is illusory. The Marcos Jr. government merely allows the US to exploit our maritime dispute with China to turn the Philippines into an extension of the US military network and a staging ground for its acts of aggression As for the Dutertes and the Marcoses, history and our people will inevitably judge them accountable for treason, corruption, and other high crimes against the Filipino people. #
