[News] Stop the $2 Billion Arms Sale to the Philippines

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/05/20/stop-the-2-billion-arms-sale-to-the-philippines/
Stop
the $2 Billion Arms Sale to the Philippines by Amee Chew
<https://www.counterpunch.org/author/7hapatebathu/> - May 20, 2020
------------------------------

On April 30, the U.S. State Department announced two pending arms
<https://dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/philippines-ah-1z-attack-helicopters-and-related-equipment-and-support>
sales
<https://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/philippines-apache-ah-64e-attack-helicopters-and-related-equipment-and-support>
to the Philippines totaling nearly $2 billion. Boeing, Lockheed Martin,
Bell Helicopter, and General Electric are the main weapons manufacturers
contracted to profit from the deal.

Following this announcement, a 30-day window for Congress to review and
voice opposition to the sale commenced. It is imperative that we stop this
avalanche
<http://securityassistance.org/fact_sheet/arms-sales-and-security-aid-time-duterte>
of military aid for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime.

Duterte’s human rights record is atrocious. If the arms sale goes through,
it will escalate a worsening crackdown on human rights defenders and on
dissent — while fomenting an ongoing bloodbath. Duterte is infamous for
launching a “War on Drugs” that, since 2016, has claimed the lives of as
many as 27,000
<https://news.abs-cbn.com/focus/12/05/18/chr-chief-drug-war-deaths-could-be-as-high-as-27000>
souls, mostly low-income people summarily executed by police and vigilantes.

In Duterte’s first three years of office, nearly
<https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-to-the-philippines/> 300
<https://www.karapatan.org/2019-karapatan-year-end-report> journalists,
human rights lawyers, environmentalists, peasant leaders, trade unionists,
and human rights defenders were assassinated. The Philippines has been
ranked the deadliest country for environmentalists
<https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/07/25/18/under-duterte-philippines-ranked-asias-most-dangerous-country-for-environment-defenders>
in the world, after Brazil. Many
<https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/martial-law-in-mindanao-takes-deadly-toll-on-land-environmental-defenders/>
of these slayings are linked to military
<https://www.karapatan.org/2018-Karapatan-HR-Report> personnel
<https://www.karapatan.org/2019-karapatan-year-end-report>.

Now, Duterte is using COVID-19 as a pretext for further militarization and
repression, despite the dire consequences for public health.

Around the world, and particularly for the U.S., the COVID-19 pandemic has
brought to the fore the contradiction between military capacity and human
well-being. This arms deal is yet another example of the U.S. government’s
gross misallocation of resources towards war profiteering and
militarization, rather than health services and human needs. The Pentagon’s
bloated budget of trillions has done nothing
<https://inkstickmedia.com/first-in-military-spending-last-in-our-covid-19-response/>
to protect us from a public health catastrophe, and has failed to create
true security.

Only a complete realignment of federal priorities away from militarization,
here and abroad, and towards strengthening infrastructures of care will.

*Duterte’s Militarized Response to COVID-19*

The COVID-19 pandemic has served as a pretext for Duterte to impose
military checkpoints, mass arrests, and de facto martial law throughout the
Philippines.

As of late April, over 120,000
<https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/police-abuse-prison-deaths-draw-concern-as-philippines-tightens-lockdown-measures/>
people have been cited for quarantine violations, and over 30,000
<https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/police-abuse-prison-deaths-draw-concern-as-philippines-tightens-lockdown-measures/>
arrested — despite the severe overcrowding in Philippine jails, already
exacerbated <https://theaseanpost.com/article/packed-prisons-philippines>
by the drug war. “Stay at home” orders are ruthlessly enforced by the
police, even as in many urban poor communities, people live hand-to-mouth.

Without daily earnings, millions are desperate for food. By late April, a
majority of indigent households had still not received
<https://www.ibon.org/on-7th-week-of-lockdown-10m-workers-and-informal-earner-households-still-waiting-for-emergency-subsidies/>
any government relief. A thousand
<https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-philippines-coronavirus-lockdown-is-becoming-a-crackdown/>
residents in Pasay were forced into homelessness when their informal
settlement was destroyed
<https://www.bulatlat.com/2020/03/18/300-homes-in-pasay-demolished-amid-covid-19-pandemic/>
in the name of slum clearance at the beginning of the lockdown, even as the
homeless are arrested and thrown in jail.

Duterte has placed the military
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/255763-government-implement-national-action-plan-coronavirus-dnd-lead>
in charge of COVID-19 response. On April 1, he ordered troops to “shoot dead
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/256705-duterte-orders-troops-shoot-kill-coronavirus-quarantine-violators>”
quarantine violators, causing human rights abuses to immediately surge. The
next day, a farmer, Junie Dugog Piñar
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/257165-police-shoot-dead-farmer-agusan-del-norte-coronavirus>,
was shot and killed by police for violating the COVID-19 lockdown in Agusan
del Norte, Mindanao.

Police have locked curfew violators in dog cages
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/26/philippines-curfew-violators-abused>,
used torture and sexual humiliation
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/04/philippines-investigate-humiliating-abuses-curfew/>
as punishment against LGBTQ people, and beaten and arrested
<https://www.amnesty.org.uk/urgent-actions/residents-seeking-covid-19-relief-charged>
urban
poor people
<https://www.philstar.com/nation/2020/04/06/2005877/sitio-san-roque-residents-picked-protest-food-post-bail>
protesting
for food <https://international.thenewslens.com/article/133620>. Beatings
<https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/police-abuse-prison-deaths-draw-concern-as-philippines-tightens-lockdown-measures/>
and killings
<https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/metro/735154/cops-shoot-army-vet-dead-kin-say-he-was-unarmed-had-mental-issues/story/>
to enforce “enhanced community quarantine” continue. Meanwhile, a teacher
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/256157-teacher-son-arrested-without-warrant-general-santos-city-facebook-post-coronavirus?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nation>
was arrested simply for posting “provoking” comments on social media that
decried the lack of government relief, while a filmmaker was detained two
nights without a warrant
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/22/philippine-activists-charged-sedition-fake-news>
for a sarcastic post on COVID-19.

*Mutual Aid, Solidarity, and Resistance*

In the face of widespread hunger, inadequate health care, and lethal
repression, vibrant grassroots social movement organizations have created
mutual aid and relief initiatives providing food, masks, and medical
supplies to the poor.

Cure Covid <https://www.facebook.com/pg/curecovidph/>, a network of
volunteers across myriad organizations in the greater Metro Manila region,
has organized relief packs and community kitchens for thousands, while
engaging in community organizing to strengthen mutual aid. Movement
organizers are calling for mass testing, basic services, and an end to the
militarized COVID-19 response.

KADAMAY <https://www.facebook.com/kadamaynational/> is a mass-based
organization of 200,000 urban poor people across the Philippines that has
been at the forefront of resisting Duterte’s drug war and reclaiming
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-landrights-lawmaking/manilas-homeless-set-to-move-into-more-empty-homes-if-official-handover-delayed-idUSKBN1H41L7>
vacant housing for homeless people. In 2017, KADAMAY led 12,000 homeless
people
<https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1207592/how-are-kadamay-folk-after-2017-takeover-of-bulacan-housing>
in occupying 6,000
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/166293-kadamay-housing-issue-briefer>
vacant homes that had been set aside for the police and military in Pandi,
Bulacan. Despite repression and intimidation, #OccupyBulacan
<https://radicalhousingjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/06_Retrospectives_Dizon_105-129-1.pdf>
continues to this day.

With COVID-19, KADAMAY has led mutual aid efforts and #ProtestFromHome
pot-banging actions, with video
<https://www.facebook.com/kadamaynational/videos/1028466767553700/?__xts__%5b0%5d=68.ARAk2aqyN9TUCytKp_XaLjosdP1yy6wM_F53eVHpRuBujKvSQvRICXnJ8WWr2jCyJNr5c3LKOp0gmtYJ7u_Xxf8fRSDUkBlb-BQsrLWl9djgQMYDqeZhwgeaBNf6J2i23rIekUSWvMf-9Fne_EmN4SMEgza3kpj0oYAYXyxe-_zFuWKzTOXexwj6eJCNN2ZlG3ryucl45T_ypZ-QGyqcehWwyAKi-X1u6oVRFObfJVqfScz_iD9JCKLRc5ThpKrneGpmmq3xosV6IGrCamFV4gEecsL4xH7SKyVqjUSGK1Z8d1OP5J9pDuh11otoLK38bTEQyox9oQCnGaCgc7Ti_qb1&__tn__=H-R>
disseminated on social media, to demand relief and health services, not
militarization. In immediate reprisal for voicing dissent after one
pot-banging, the national spokesperson of KADAMAY, Mimi Doringo
<https://www.facebook.com/kadamaynational/photos/a.190754707946703/1072991196389712/>,
was threatened with arrest. In Bulacan, a community leader was taken to a
military encampment and told to cease all political activity
<https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/the-philippines-pandemic-response-a-tragedy-of-errors/>
and “surrender” to the government or he would get no relief aid.

Efforts at mutual aid are being criminalized and targeted for repression.
Since late April, police have carried out mass arrests of relief
volunteers, alongside street vendors and those seeking food. On April 19, seven
relief volunteers
<https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/04/21/2008760/critical-not-seditious-journalist-artists-say-papers-halted-bulacan-relief-drive>
from Sagip Kanayunan were detained while on their way to distribute food in
Bulacan, and later charged with inciting “sedition.” On April 24, 50 urban
poor residents in Quezon City, including a relief volunteer, were detained
for not carrying quarantine passes or wearing face masks. On May 1, ten
volunteers
<https://www.karapatan.org/instead+of+addressing+mass+poverty+and+hunger+on+labor+day+duterte+unleashes+mass+arrests+and+fascism>
conducting relief with the women’s organization GABRIELA were arrested
while conducting a community feeding in Marikina City.

This targeting is no accident. Since 2018, an executive order by Duterte
has authorized a “whole-of-nation approach” to counter-insurgency, through
a broad array
<https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2018/12/11/1876093/duterte-signs-whole-nation-eo-vs-insurgency>
of government agencies, resulting in increased
<https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/02/09/1991651/chr-anti-insurgency-drive-being-used-justify-threats-attacks-activists>
repression
<https://www.karapatan.org/STOP+THE+ATTACKS+AGAINST+HUMAN+RIGHTS+DEFENDERS%21>
against community organizers and human rights defenders generally.

The crackdowns against mutual aid and survival have prompted campaigns on
social media to “stop criminalizing care and community
<https://www.facebook.com/kadamaynational/posts/1096749317347233>.” Save
San Roque <https://www.facebook.com/SaveSitioSanRoque>, a network
supporting the resistance of urban poor residents against demolition, has
started a petition <http://bit.ly/ECQPETITION> to immediately release
relief volunteers and all low-level quarantine violators. Human
<https://ichrp.net/ph-government-urged-to-set-political-prisoners-free-amid-the-outbreak-of-coronavirus-in-jails/>
rights
<https://www.karapatan.org/karapatan+asserts+call+political+prisoners+release+government+agencies+relax+rules+pardon+executive+clemency>
organizations
<https://www.omct.org/human-rights-defenders/statements/philippines/2020/04/d25775/>
are also petitioning
<https://www.change.org/p/president-rodrigo-duterte-sendthemhome-free-all-political-prisoners-in-the-philippines-amid-the-global-pandemic?recruiter=19785508&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition>
for the release of political prisoners, many of them low-income farmers,
trade unionists, and human rights defenders facing trumped up charges,
including the elderly and ill.

As a direct result of the government response focused on militarization,
rather than adequate health care, food, and services, the Philippines has
among the highest number of COVID-19 cases
<https://www.csis.org/programs/southeast-asia-program/southeast-asia-covid-19-tracker-0>
in Southeast Asia, and the pandemic is quickly worsening.

*Colonial Roots*

Today’s U.S.-Philippine military alliance has its roots in the U.S.
colonization and occupation of the Philippines over a hundred years ago.

Despite granting the Philippines independence in 1946, the U.S. has used
unequal trade agreements and its military presence to maintain the
Philippines’ neocolonial status ever since. For decades, propping up
oligarchic rulers and preventing land reform guaranteed the U.S. cheap
agricultural exports. The U.S. military assisted with countering a string
of continual rebellions.

U.S. military aid still continues to facilitate corporate extraction of
Philippine natural resources, real estate monopoly, and repression of
indigenous and peasant struggles for land rights — particularly in
Mindanao, a hotbed of communist, indigenous, and Muslim separatist
resistance and the recent center of military operations.

The Philippine armed forces are focused on domestic counter-insurgency,
overwhelmingly directing violence against poor and marginalized people
within the country’s own borders. Philippine military and police operations
are closely intertwined. In fact, historically the Philippine police
developed out of counter-insurgency operations during U.S. colonial rule.

The U.S. military itself maintains a troop presence in the Philippines
through its Operation Pacific Eagle and other exercises.

In the name of “counterterrorism,” U.S. military aid is helping Duterte
wage war on Philippine soil and repress civilian dissent. Since 2017,
Duterte has imposed martial law on Mindanao, where he has repeatedly dropped
bombs <https://www.karapatan.org/2018-Karapatan-HR-Report>. Military
attacks have displaced over 450,000 civilians
<https://www.karapatan.org/2019-karapatan-year-end-report>.

Carried out with U.S. backing and even joint activities
<https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-to-the-philippines/>,
Duterte’s military operations are shoring up the corporate land-grabbing
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pTShcOkHjqndw19oeREZrCuGFneEXPts/view> of
indigenous lands and massacres
<https://news.mongabay.com/2019/10/martial-law-in-mindanao-takes-deadly-toll-on-land-environmental-defenders/>
of farmers
<https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1104525/14-negros-farmers-summarily-executed-fact-finding-teams>
organizing
<https://www.panaynews.net/rights-group-seeks-probe-on-death-of-farmer-leader/>
for their land rights. Paramilitaries backed by the armed forces are
terrorizing indigenous communities, targeting schools and teachers
<https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-to-the-philippines/>.

In February, prior to the announced arms deal, Duterte nominally rescinded
the U.S.-Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which allows U.S.
troops to be stationed in the Philippines for “joint exercises.” On the
surface, this was in response to the U.S. denying a visa
<https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/22/us-revokes-visa-philippines-drug-war-police-chief>
to former drug war police chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa. However, Duterte’s
revocation of the VFA is not immediately effective, and only begins a
6-month process of renegotiation.

The proposed arms sale signals that Trump intends to strengthen his
military backing for Duterte. The Pentagon seeks to maintain a close
military “partnership.”

*End U.S. Military Aid *

A growing international movement, in solidarity with indigenous and
Filipino communities, is calling for an end to military aid to the
Philippines. U.S. direct military aid to Duterte’s regime totaled over
$193.5 million
<https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-to-the-philippines/> in
2018, not counting pre-allocated amounts and donated weapons of unreported
worth. Military aid also consists of grants to purchase arms, usually from
U.S. contractors.

Relatedly, the U.S. government regulates the flow of private arms sales
abroad — such as the current proposed sale. Sales brokered by the U.S.
government are often a public subsidy to private contractors, using our
U.S. tax dollars to complete the purchase. Congress must use its power to
cut the pending sale off.

The latest proposed $2 billion arms
<https://dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/philippines-ah-1z-attack-helicopters-and-related-equipment-and-support>
sale
<https://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/philippines-apache-ah-64e-attack-helicopters-and-related-equipment-and-support>
includes 12 attack helicopters, hundreds of missiles and warheads, guidance
and detection systems, machine guns, and over 80,000 rounds of ammunition.
The State Department says these, too, would be used for “counterterrorism”
— i.e., repression
<https://www.karapatan.org/budget+for+ph+arms+deal+with+us+should+be+rechanelled+to+health+services+food+aid+for+poor+filipinos>
in the Philippines. Due to lack of transparency and Duterte’s deliberate
<http://nine.cnnphilippines.com/news/2018/08/30/PNP-drug-war-Oplan-Double-Barrel-budget.html>
efforts
<https://fpif.org/its-time-to-end-u-s-military-aid-to-the-philippines/> to
obscure aid flows, U.S. military aid may well end up providing ammunition
to the armed forces waging Duterte’s drug war, to vigilantes, or to
paramilitaries, all without public scrutiny.

Duterte is using the pandemic as a pretext to continue crushing political
opposition. He has now assumed special emergency powers. Even prior to the
pandemic, in October 2019, police and military raided
<https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA3513422019ENGLISH.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2Va2QPYr2O56k4XusxPnPCRrnN7S2zyB0qZh61F4uvk6YVumDhbUs35IA>
the offices of GABRIELA, opposition party Bayan Muna, and the National
Federation of Sugar Workers, arresting over 57 people in Bacolod City and
Metro Manila in one sweep.

Tragically, repression is quickly escalating.

On April 30, after weeks of police intimidation for conducting feeding
programs, Jory Porquia
<https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2020/05/02/2011223/helping-feed-poor-iloilo-activist-shot-dead>,
a founding member of Bayan Muna, was assassinated inside his home
<https://www.rappler.com/nation/259499-they-shot-my-tatay-nine-times-jory-porquia>
in Iloilo. Over 76 protesters and relief workers were illegally arrested on May
Day
<https://www.karapatan.org/instead+of+addressing+mass+poverty+and+hunger+on+labor+day+duterte+unleashes+mass+arrests+and+fascism>,
including four youth feeding program volunteers in Quezon City, four
residents who posted online photos of their “protesting from home” in
Valenzuela, two
<https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/05/02/many-poople-arrested-in-may-day-protests-in-philippines>
unionists holding placards in Rizal, and 42 people conducting a vigil for
slain human rights defender Porquia in Iloilo. Sixteen workers in a Coca-Cola
factory
<https://www.karapatan.org/instead+of+addressing+mass+poverty+and+hunger+on+labor+day+duterte+unleashes+mass+arrests+and+fascism>
in Laguna were abducted and forced by the military to “surrender” posing as
armed insurgents
<https://ichrp.net/labor-day-protests-against-dutertes-de-facto-martial-law-held-around-the-world/>
.

The U.S.’s war machine profits its private contractors at our expense.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Boeing relied on the Pentagon for a third
<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/boeing-wants-a-government-bailout-the-pentagon-already-gave-it-one/>
of its income. In April, Boeing received a bailout of $882 million
<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/04/boeing-wants-a-government-bailout-the-pentagon-already-gave-it-one/>
to restart a paused Air Force contract — for refueling aircraft that are in
fact, defective. But for-profit weapons manufacturers and other war
profiteers should have no place steering our foreign policy.

Congress has the power to dissent but must act swiftly. Rep. Ilhan Omar has
introduced
<https://omar.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-omar-introduces-pathway-peace-bold-foreign-policy-vision-united-states>
a bill to stop arming human rights abusers such as Duterte. This
month, the International
Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines <https://ichrpus.org/>,
Communications Workers of America, and others, will launch a bill
specifically to end military aid to the Philippines. In the meantime, we
must urge Congress to stop the proposed arms sales to the Philippines:
please sign this petition <https://bit.ly/ICHRPUSsignOn> to do so.

The COVID-19 pandemic is baring the need for global solidarity against
militarization and austerity. In taking up the fight against the deep
footprint of U.S. imperialism, here and abroad, our movements will make
each other stronger.

*This article first appeared on FPIF
<https://fpif.org/stop-the-2-billion-arms-sale-to-the-philippines/>.*
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