The Philippines: Freeing a Vassal Nation Controlled By the U.S. Empire

By David Starr

 

It has gone on for too long. The United States empire has had a tight grip on the Philippines since the late 1890s.

 

During that era, which U.S. leaders and their supporters intoxicated themselves with Manifest Destiny, claiming that the Filipinos were unfit for self-government, there were efforts to help the “little brown brothers” get Christianized (as if Spanish Catholicism was not enough) and to “lift them up” in order to “civilize” them.

 

To start out, the U.S. empire did not exactly bring freedom and democracy to the Philippines. The Philippine-American War was a bloody and barbaric conflict, with about 650,000 Filipinos killed. Today, this would constitute attempted genocide. Back then for the U.S. empire, it was “mission accomplished.” 

 

From there, the Philippines became a vassal colony. Eventually, it became a vassal nation. 

 

The U.S. military has played a significant role in the Philippines, with the empire repeatedly violating Philippine sovereignty. For example, in 2018, according to journalist Noah Alexander Flora writing in The Progressive, the Philippines has been overly dependent on the U.S. empire: 

 

“As a key military ally and former territory, the Philippines have long received substantial financial and institutional support through U.S. foreign aid. The State Department allocated $50 million in foreign military financing. This puts the Philippines behind only Israel and Egypt among recipients of U.S. military funding outside the Western hemisphere.”

 

At the time Rodrigo Duterte was “president” and went on a drug war binge, possibly killing about 20,000 people. And the poor took the brunt of the drug war. Flora quotes Katie Joaquin, U.S. national legislative coordinator for the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP US): “What they call a war on drugs we understand to be a war on the poor.”

 

Poverty has been a significant issue in the Philippines for decades. But Philippine dependence on the U.S. empire has not alleviated or eliminated poverty. And with that there sometimes is desperation, and with that violence.

 

When it comes down to it, the U.S. military has exacerbated conditions in the Philippines because of its subservience to U.S. “interests.” (Which has meant protecting and expanding capitalist rule, usually as a consequence for workers and the poor.) 

 

According to a ICHRP fact sheet, again using 2018 as an example, “U.S. military aid totaled at least $193.5 million.”

 

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has actually helped the U.S. military protect the empire’s “interests,” to the detriment of workers and the poor. 

 

And community leaders helping them have also been targeted. One example was published in the January 2026 issue of CounterPunch in a piece by activists Cat Magtalas, Rick Rothschiller and Seiji Yamada. 

 

Filipina-American Chantal Anicoche is a community leader in the Philippines who took an interest in learning about the cause and effect of environmental disasters and poverty. But Anicoche went missing for about a week after the AFP attacked the indigenous community of Mangyan-Iraya where Anicoche was providing assistance.

 

On January 8, the AFP revealed that Anicoche was in their custody. The writers of the CounterPunch article state that, “Despite the AFP’s claims that they ‘rescued’ Chantal, even going so far as to publish a video of the ‘moment she was found,’ – we believe that this video was staged.” The writers also suspect that “she had been taken as a political prisoner.

 

“Chantal continues to be held under the [AFP’s] custody. On January 10, the AFP purported that she signed ‘an affidavit of undertaking’ to ‘voluntarily’ remain with the military and undergo medical treatment.” 

 

In conclusion, the writers stated that, “The International Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines has issued a full list of demands,” including the immediate and unconditional release of Anicoche; a swift, impartial investigation; full respect for her rights; and the immediate end to AFP bombings and attacks on civilian communities.

 

That is one example of many of the AFP working for U.S. “interests” and not respecting their own country’s sovereignty and basic rights of the people.

 

Getting back to “defense” spending, according to Claire Morales True, managing editor of Philippine News Today, “The Philippines will receive $500 million in 2026 and the succeeding years up to 2030 or a total of $2.5 billion in military and security assistance from the United States through the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), considered as Washington’s most intensive defense investment into the Philippines since the Cold War.”

 

In conclusion, True writes, “The [Philippine Army] is committed to strengthen its ties with the U.S. Army and maintaining peace in the Indo-Pacific region alongside other like-minded nations.” The absurdity of this comment reeks of past rhetoric characteristic of the Philippines’ gross dependency and subservience to the U.S. empire.

 

There has to be change in the Philippines. It can start with the removal of the U.S. empire’s imperial hold on it, getting rid of the military that protects U.S. “interests” there. And getting rid of U.S. private monopolies that characterize those interests. And putting genuine economic and political power in the hands of the Philippine population, especially the workers and the poor.