NDF-Eastern Visayas propaganda statement posted to the Communist Party of the Philippines Website (Apr 8): GRP President Duterte urged to cancel Ormoc Balikatan, other US military exercises
Fr. Santiago “Ka Sanny” Salas, Spokesperson
NDFP Eastern Visayas (Region VIII)
8 April 2017
The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas (NDF-EV) today called on GRP President Rodrigo Duterte to cancel the Balikatan war exercises by US and Philippine troops in Ormoc City, Leyte slated for April and May.
“The NDF-EV urges GRP President Duterte to cancel the Ormoc Balikatan as a patriotic gesture to the ongoing peace process where Filipinos are solving their own problems,” said NDF-EV spokesperson Fr. Santiago “Ka Sanny” Salas. “It is important for the GRP president to turn his talk about independence from the US into action. After all, the continuing indirect control by the US of the Philippines has held back progress and divided Filipinos as a major reason for the current civil war.”
Fr. Salas also said, “The planned ‘outreach activities’ by the US troops in Ormoc City sugarcoat interventionism by the US military — the world’s most funded by around US$ 600 billion every year — through such comparatively cheap palliatives as medical missions, book donations, and the construction and repair of school buildings and health centers.”
The NDF-EV spokesperson noted that GRP President Duterte had earlier condemned US atrocities in Mindanao in colonizing the Philippines at the turn of the last century. “Like GRP President Duterte, the people of Eastern Visayas have unaddressed historic grievances over the crimes of US imperialism. As many as 50,000 people in Samar alone were killed in the same historical timeframe that Duterte expressed anger over.
“For Philippine troops to hold war exercises with US troops in Ormoc City is thus an insult to the historical sufferings of the region that continue to this day, through the US-backed “counterinsurgency” campaign of the GRP’s military that also essentially enforces the US-designed, anti-national and anti-people neoliberal socio-economic order.”
Fr. Salas urged the people of Eastern Visayas to study their history and present conditions and march against the Ormoc Balikatan and US military intervention. “The people of Samar and Leyte must call on the Duterte government to cancel the Ormoc Balikatan and 256 other US military exercises in the country this year. They must demand that GRP President Duterte be true to his word and end the Mutual Defense Treaty, VFA, SOFA, EDCA and other unequal military agreements with the US. They must urge patriotic Filipino soldiers to assert national sovereignty and reject US imperialism and its camp followers in the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The GRP-NDFP peace talks will surely have far brighter prospects when US imperialism and its allied enemies of the people are isolated and exposed.”
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