Vol. VIII, No. 16 - August 31, 2026

The recent Mutual Defense Board-Security Engagement Board (MDB-SEB) meeting held on August 7 at Camp Aguinaldo once again laid bare the deepening subservience of the Marcos Jr. regime to US imperialism. In the meeting, top officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the US military signed the so-called "8-star memo," a document that will govern hundreds of military activities and operations across the country in 2027. At the same time, both sides reaffirmed the 75-year-old Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), one of the most enduring instruments of US neocolonial control over the Philippines.

As in previous years, the Filipino people were deliberately kept in the dark about the contents of the agreement. Authorities announced the meeting only after it had taken place, while the details of the 8-star memo remain largely secret. What has been disclosed however is enough to reveal its anti-national character. The agreement will pave the way for over 500 defense engagements annually such as military operations, exercises, exchanges, and other activities involving US troops, effectively trampling on the country’s national sovereignty.

Since its signing in 1951, the MDT has functioned as a mechanism for preserving US influence over the country's political and military affairs. The MDT has ensured the continued dependence of the AFP on foreign military aid, intelligence, equipment, and even direct supervision during ‘counterinsurgency’ operations. The AFP itself remains one of the primary instruments of US imperialism to preserve the fascist rule of big bourgeois compradors and big landlords.

The renewed affirmation of the MDT comes amid intensifying inter-imperialist rivalry between the US and China. Faced with its strategic decline and mounting economic and political crises, US imperialism is aggressively consolidating military positions across the Asia-Pacific in an effort to preserve its global hegemony. The Philippines has become a critical component of this strategy. Through the MDT, EDCA, the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), and other lopsided defense agreements, the US has aggressively expanded and consolidated its military footprint throughout the archipelago.

The increasing number of military exercises, the construction and expansion of EDCA sites, the prepositioning of military equipment, and the growing presence of US troops all point to a single objective: preparing the Philippines to serve as a staging ground in future US military confrontations in the region. These measures are intended to advance US strategic interests and strengthen its capacity to project military power against its rivals.

The greatest danger is that the Filipino people are being made to shoulder the risks of a conflict that serves neither their interests nor their aspirations. In utter subservience to his imperialist master, the Marcos regime is integrating the country ever more deeply into US wars of aggression. Communities located near military facilities, ports, airfields, and EDCA sites face the prospect of becoming targets in any future armed confrontation with China.

The reactionary state's enthusiastic embrace of the MDT and other related agreements also reveals its deep fear of the Filipino people's growing resistance. While billions are allocated for military modernization and expanding military cooperation with the US, the basic demands of the masses for land, jobs, decent wages, social services, and genuine national development continue to be ignored. The same AFP that trains with foreign troops and receives advanced weaponry continues to direct its firepower against rural communities, revolutionary forces, and mass organizations struggling for social justice and national liberation.

These AFP generals are the same war-hungry hawks who are among the principal obstacles to the resumption of meaningful peace negotiations between the NDFP and the GRP. For decades, they have consistently sabotaged efforts to address the roots of the armed conflict by insisting on the surrender and capitulation of the revolutionary movement rather than engaging in genuine negotiations on social, economic, and political reforms. 
The signing of the 8-star memo and the reaffirmation of the MDT should therefore be understood as further steps in the consolidation of US imperialist domination over the Philippine neocolonial state.

The Filipino people's struggle against the MDT is inseparable from the broader struggle against imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. Genuine national security can never be achieved through dependence on foreign military powers. It can only be secured through the assertion of national sovereignty, the dismantling of imperialist control, and the realization of the Filipino people's democratic aspirations.