US imperialism strengthens grip on class and state power in the Philippines

Written by: (Contributed) on 11 October 2024

Above; Filipinos protest the visit of Austin and Blinken on Juy 30, 2024. Source KMU website

Controversy surrounding members of the Duterte family in the Philippines has raised serious considerations about their longer-term viability as a political dynasty. The former president, Rodrigo Duterte, would appear to have lost much of his support and faces an uncertain future. The resurgent Marcos oligarchy, backed by the US, has returned the Philippines to its past Cold War diplomatic status as a compliant participant for 'US interests'. What the outcome of these developments means for the Philippine working-class and their progressive organisations remains unclear; their struggles, nevertheless, continue!

An official statement from Philippine academic and social commentator, Antonio J. Montalvan II, that, 'we are seeing the end of the Duterte dynasty … it … will emasculate the once-untouchable power of the Duterte's', has captured both the timing and the gravity of problems facing Duterte family members and some of their closest associates. (1) Duterte's daughter, Sara, who is currently vice-president of the country, is facing the prospect of criminal charges, together with former president Rodrigo, facing charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected to presidential office with a huge majority in 2016, successfully pushing oligarchies away from the centre of the political power they had dominated for decades. Within a short time of taking office Duterte announced the Philippines would be pursuing an independent foreign policy. (2) The country had been previously a central regional part of US-led foreign policy, with both Washington and the Pentagon dominating decision-making. (3)

The US, historically, regarded the Philippines as the centre of an arc as the most reliably vantage point, with one wing swinging toward the more developed countries of North-east Asia and the other swinging toward the lesser developed but natural resource rich countries of South-east Asia. (4)

While the US and other allies had troops stationed in the Philippines, control was more often than not exerted through oligarchies and Triads at almost every strategic point inside the ramshackle governing administration in Manila and elsewhere in the provinces. The presidential election of Duterte, at a superficial level, was a rejection by the mass of the Philippine population to end political chicanery and rampant corruption and begin afresh.

The ensuing period was marked by optimism and an upsurge in worker's militancy and the struggle for raising the basic minimum wage; a large part of the Philippine working class, for example, works in the informal sector of the economy, where important industrial struggles for trade-union organisation and recognition for basic wages remain of central importance for the whole movement.

Those retaining traditional class and state power were initially thrust back onto defensive tactics. The strongly anti-Communist state apparatus, including the armed forces and their associates, continued, nevertheless, to follow US hegemonic positions, wherever possible. On 7 May 2018, for example, the Philippines engaged in the Balikatan joint military exercises with the US which included: participation with Australia and Japan; the start of building construction inside existing military bases for five US facilities 'wherein the super-power can preposition military equipment and supplies for its exclusive use in operations in the Asia-Pacific region'. (5)

The military facilities accessed by the US included:

a military warehouse in the Basa Air Base, Pampanga;
Antonio Bautista Air Base, Palawan;
Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija;
Lumbia Air Base, Cagayan de Oro City;
Mactan-Benito Air Base, Cebu City. (6)

While Duterte's moves to negotiate a peace settlement with the Communist-led New People's Army (NPA) was initially greeted, it eventually led to very little being achieved. In fact, the NPA used the period to expand their guerilla operations and recruit large numbers of younger people. The diplomatic position of the US toward the NPA has been, historically, conducted along lines of 'low-intensity' methods; US military intervention, however, has always been an agenda item if the NPA were able to 'achieve enough momentum to create significant destabilisation or even victory'. (7)

Throughout the whole period the Marcos oligarchy surreptitiously recouped their famous 'Marcos millions', huge financial assets amassed by Marcos senior during the previous Cold War. The Philippines, during that time and the present, remains a 'kleptocracy', with widespread corruption. Having repossessed their ill-gotten gains the Marcos oligarchy then set about regaining political power which they had lost with the tumultuous upheavals of 1986. Their objectives were achieved following the Duterte presidential period.

After winning the 2022 national elections Ferdinand Marcos Jnr. established his presidential office to quickly swing the country back into its more traditional US-led role with a compliant administration in Manila. To date, the administration has slavishly followed US-led diplomatic hostilities with China, largely in the South China Seas.

The US and their Philippine associates, however, appear to have now set their sights on removing any lasting support linked to the Duterte family, which continues to be seen as an obstacle to US-led supremacy. It had shown just how high the stakes have become for Washington and the Pentagon when dealing with countries inside their sphere of influence.

By using a convicted drug trafficker and former customs intelligence officer, Jimmy Guban, allegations have been levelled at some of Duterte's associates, including his son, Paolo, who is a congressman, and Manases Carpio, husband of Sara, that a total of 355 kgs of crystal methamphetamine was smuggled into the Philippines. (8) Whether he has been a credible witness remains, as yet, to be established by usual legal procedures, which in the Philippines can best be viewed as highly questionable.

Elsewhere, further allegations levelled at Apollo Quiboloy, head of a spurious quasi-religious cult, the Owners of the Universe, for involvement in fraud, currency smuggling, human trafficking and a child sex ring, have ensnared Sara Duterte who has been one of his most conspicuous supporters. (9)

Rodrigo Duterte, furthermore, is also being considered for possible legal proceedings with the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his sanctioning of extra-judicial killings of about 13,000 alleged drug traffickers; the ICC has been actively involved in extensive investigations of the killings since 2017 as crimes against humanity. (10)

With the Philippines safely back inside the US fold, its linkage into the US-led Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS) has also taken place; it is now fully incorporated as a lower-level partner alongside South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam and others, with the US-Japan alliance having been upgraded to a global partnership. (11)

The IPS is one of the main regional mechanisms through which the US pushes the present Cold War, which has serious implications for all levels of subject societies. A particularly relevant additional factor has been the recent high-level military-diplomatic talks between the US and the Marcos administration whereby the Pentagon have provided US$500 million of 'foreign military financing'. (12)

Declassified military-diplomatic documents from the previous Cold War reveal a great deal about US positions toward their compliant allies. US-led intelligence agents were trained and instructed to infiltrate every organisation open to penetration, with intelligence-gathering aimed at profiling whole populations for identification. (13) The main target for special attention, however, were those identified responsible for opposition to the US Defence Department 'during peacetime and all levels of conflict'. (14) With the US preoccupied with provoking hostilities and a confrontation with China in the South China Seas, the Philippines has been placed in a front-line position of US-led military planning, with all which that position entails; criticism of the US-China hostilities is very difficult.

It is important to note that while the military documentation was declassified, it was also subsequently updated to serve more recent developments which obviously include interception of on-line telecommunications. The basic parts of the military directives remain fully operational.

Subsequent Pentagon intelligence material which was also leaked during the early years of the so-called New World Order of the 1990s, for example, revealed just how high the US had placed the Philippines onto their agendas for the retention of traditional hegemonic diplomatic positions. The period was marked by the triumphalism of capitalism and imperialism, and the closure of prominent US military facilities in the country. In February 1992 the leakage of highly classified intelligence material, nevertheless, revealed US-led preparations for a regional war 'to defend the lives of US citizens threatened by instability in the Philippines', if, and when, required. (15)

One notable feature of Cold War politics is the difficulty, therefore, for progressive organisations to operate openly without outside external interference; the eyes and the ears of class and state power intrude from every possible vantage point, with almost unlimited amounts of finance for bribery and corruption which stifle all levels of Philippine society.

In the Philippines recent studies of the US-led interference and its effect upon the working-class have included waves of eliminations and disappearances of local trade-union activists and other repression.

At the level of employment, the Philippine working-class operate within an economy which has retained many features of neo-colonialism and semi-feudalism, dependent upon foreign investment through international financial institutions controlled largely by the US.

Recent studies have found that while official unemployment statistics record it affecting only 3.1 per cent of the workforce or 1.62 million workers, in reality it is not particularly accurate; the informal nature of much employment is hidden through bureaucratic manipulation. (16) The problem is compounded by massive under-employment of a relatively well-educated workforce which has risen to 12.1 per cent of the workforce and 6.08 million workers. (17) Many workers require more than one job to survive.

While the main Philippine trade union organisation, the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), has demanded the government implement the P1,200 basic minimum wage, many employers openly flout the regulations and seek to contain and isolate trade-union activists. The KMU operate in extremely difficult, and dangerous, circumstances.

The struggles of the Philippine working class and their progressive organisations, nevertheless, continue unabated from the previous Cold War to the present one:

Ever Onward to Victory!

1. Manila's Duterte dynasty on the brink, Australian, 18 September 2024.
2. See: Tightening Phil military involvement with the US, The Philippine Star, 5 May 2018.
3. See: The objectives of the US., The Guardian, 6 August 2003.
4. Ibid.
5. Philippine Star, op.cit., 5 May 2018.
6. Ibid.
7. Tracking covert actions into the future, Philip Agee, Covert Action – the roots of terrorism, Edited - Ellen Ray and William Shaap, (Melbourne, 2003), page 13.
8. Australian, op.cit., 18 September 2024.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
12. Austin-Blinken visit, KMU., (Philippines), Official Website, 30 June 2024.
13. See: Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program, Army Regulation 381-20, Declassified 1993; and, Army's project X had a wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997; and, 'The CIA cleanses itself', The New York Times, 4 March 1997.
14. AR 381-20, ibid., Mission and Policy, Reference 1.5, page 1.
15. Tracking covert actions into the future, Philip Agee, op.cit., pp. 9-10;
16. See: On the June 2024 Labor Force Survey: Low quality jobs, meager wages, KMU Official Website: posted 8 August 2024.
17. Ibid.