The plan to buy and deploy the costly US Typhon missile system in the Philippines has been widely assailed, both in the Philippines and abroad.

The Typhon Mid-range Capability (MRC) missile system has the capability to launch Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles that can fly up to 1,600 kilometers. The US began manufacturing such weapons in 2019, which were previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a nuclear treaty between the US and the then USSR signed during the Cold War. The US withdrew from this treaty in 2019.

The Marcos regime through its factotums in the Armed Forces announced last December 23 that it was buying the missile system. The cost of this missile system is reportedly around 500M USD (around 29B Php), an amount more than enough to build more public schools and homes, and agricultural subsidies for farmers especially those left more miserable as a result of recent typhoons.

Philippine regime officials have said the planned purchase of the missile system is intended to boost the archipelago’s maritime defense and “protecting the country’s sovereignty”.

Bayan Muna, a progressive political party denounced this plan that puts the country in greater danger.

“The purchase of Typhon missiles will only push our country towards greater danger. The Filipino people are justified in holding the Marcos Jr administration and its US master accountable for dragging the country as a target for nuclear war from countries that are not even our enemies,” Bayan Muna leader Carlos Zarate emphasized.

Zarate said buying these high-tech weapons is not a solution as he called on the Marcos administration to adhere to the constitution by promoting an independent foreign policy. “There should be no nuclear weapons and foreign military troops in the Philippines,” he said. The Philippine reactionary constitution prohibits nuclear weapons in Philippine territory.

Zarate also pointed out that such costly purchases of weapons from the US will only further drown the Philippines in debt. This action, he said, also reveals the Marcos regime’s brazen subservience and subordination to US imperialism at the expense of Filipinos.

The US-Marcos regime is complicit in trampling the country’s sovereignty by giving US forces extraterritorial rights, allowing the US military to store its weapons of war in the country and use it as a launching pad for US imperialism’s wars of aggression.

Last December 26, a US naval formation, led by the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, carrying a massive nuclear arsenal, crossed Philippine sovereign waters between Leyte and Mindanao. The CPP said in a statement: “This show of brute military force is a gross affront on the dignity and senses of freedom-loving Filipino people.”

Countries like China and Russia have repeatedly denounced and warned against the US’s positioning of the Typhon MRC missile system in the Philippines last April. The missiles were brought to the country and used in the largest series of Balikatan war games early in the year. Initially concealed, these openly displayed offensive weapons have been positioned at the Laoag civilian airport in Ilocos Norte, a region undeclared as a US military base or “EDCA site”, and Bongbong Marcos’ home province.#