Groups slam EDCA expansion in PHL, US-Israel attacks vs Iran

As host to numerous U.S. military sites and weapons systems, the Philippines could likewise become a target in similar conflicts involving the US.

By Marjuice Destinado
Bulatlat.com

CEBU CITY – Progressive groups condemned the recent joint United States (US) and Israel military attack on Iran, warning that the ongoing violence could endanger the Philippines due to the hosting of nine US military facilities under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). 

Under EDCA, signed in 2014, American troops are granted access to nine agreed locations across the country for joint training, pre-positioning of defense equipment, and construction of facilities. These sites include Basa Air Base in Pampanga; Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija; Lumbia Air Base in Cagayan de Oro City; Antonio Bautista Air Base and Balabac Island in Palawan; Mactan-Benito Ebuen Air Base in Cebu; Naval Base Camilo Osias and Lal-lo Airport in Cagayan; and Camp Melchor Dela Cruz in Isabela.

In a statement released Saturday, February 28, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) Philippines described the attacks as a “blatant act of aggression that escalates tensions in West Asia and could spark a wider and more destructive war.” 

The group said that Iran’s retaliatory strikes on US military bases in Gulf countries including Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain should serve as a warning to the Marcos Jr. administration.

“As host to numerous U.S. military sites and weapons systems, the Philippines could likewise become a target in similar conflicts involving the US,” ILPS said. “Amid escalating tensions in the Asia Pacific due to US assertion of its hegemony, our country risks being drawn into hostilities not of our own making because of its role as a staging ground for foreign forces.”

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) also denounced the attacks as unprovoked and illegal, calling them a “flagrant violation of international law and the Iranian people’s right to self-determination.”

Bayan stressed that the Marcos Jr. administration’s expansion of EDCA sites to nine, the planned over 500 US military activities in the Philippines each year, allocation of $144 million in new US military funding, and the deployment of intermediate-range missile systems like Typhon are transforming the country into a forward staging ground for US wars of intervention across Asia.

The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said that EDCA facilities are located near rural and coastal areas where farmers and fisherfolk live, placing them in direct danger should hostilities escalate. 

“In the event of open war, these areas risk becoming strategic targets, directly endangering the livelihoods and safety of farmers and fishing communities who have no stake in US imperialist conflicts,” KMP said.

The groups urged the Marcos Jr. administration to condemn US and Israeli aggression against Iran, halt all military cooperation that sustains imperialist campaigns in the region, and withdraw from lopsided agreements like EDCA to protect Philippine sovereignty and the safety of its citizens.

“We demand an end to this subservience. Filipino sovereignty must not be sacrificed on the altar of the US military-industrial complex and the US scheme to control critical resources and expand its spheres of influence,” Bayan said.

Rejecting US justification

The groups denounced US President Donald Trump as a “fascist dictator and war criminal,” rejecting his justification that attacks are said to be necessary to counter Iranian missile and nuclear programs.

Bayan called this rationale a “manufactured alibi of an empire determined to dominate a sovereign nation that refuses subservience” and described it as part of decades-long imperialist aggression across West Asia. 

“The US will never have the license to broker ‘peace’ anywhere in the world when it is behind the unimaginable suffering of millions of peoples and stirring countless wars wherever profit can be sniffed,” the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association (PPFA) said.

The PPFA added that US aggression extends beyond Iran, pointing to Washington’s funding of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, ongoing dispossession in the West Bank, its harassment of Venezuela, and its transformation of the Philippines into a forward base for imperial war machinery.

“Trump’s threats are not displays of strength but the tantrums of a declining empire terrified of peoples who refuse to kneel,” the PPFA said. “His obsession with crushing Iran is a confession of fear—fear of a nation that asserts its sovereignty, and of the steadfast resistance of oppressed peoples elsewhere.”

The groups challenged the United Nations, governments, and institutions to condemn the US and Israel’s military attacks on Iran and to take concrete action to halt further aggression. “We call on the peoples of the world to rise in militant solidarity with the steadfast resistance of the Iranian and Palestinian peoples, and with all nations under siege by imperialism. Let us amplify their struggles, expose the crimes of U.S. aggression and Zionist brutality, and strengthen our fight against US-led plunder and war,” the PPFA said. (AMU, DAA)

The post Groups slam EDCA expansion in PHL, US-Israel attacks vs Iran appeared first on Bulatlat.