Days before his crucifixion, Jesus declared, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13, NLV). He not only declared these profound words but also demonstrated it by giving his life on the cross. Christ’s friendship is grounded in sacrifice, service to the most marginalized, justice, and deep love; not in domination, deception, or exploitation.
The Christians for National Liberation maintains that the Philippines-US friendship Day is a farce, and falls short of biblical standard. This relationship based on colonial conquest, military intervention, and economic subservience hardly conjure genuine friendship. It is a relationship built on erasure of continuing historical atrocities of the US, obscuring the many crimes committed against the Filipino people. the language of friendship only conceals from the view the parasitical properties of this relationship.
While the Philippine government now formally observes July 4 as Philippine Republic Day, the occasion should instead serve as a stark reminder of cultural distortion of the enduring legacy of US colonialism and neocolonial control. The so-called independence granted on July 4, 1946 did not truly end the more than four decades of American colonial rule. Rather, through the US–Philippines Treaty of General Relations and other post-war colonial impositions, the United States retained granted extra-territorial and parity rights, extensive military privileges, protected the property rights of US corporations and citizens, and continued to wield significant influence over Philippine trade, foreign policy, and national development.
There is nothing truly liberating in an independence that leaves a nation politically constrained, economically dependent, and militarily subordinate. This relationship is one of parasite to its host, rather than the mutuality and reciprocation of relationship between friends. The structures of colonial rule persisted, merely assuming new forms. Today, this enduring neocolonial relationship is evident in the Philippines’ continued cultural, political, economic, and military dependence on the United States, often portrayed as “strategic cooperation.”
No true friend deceives another
into surrendering its sovereignty.
No true friend profits from another’s insecurity.
No true friend prepares another’s homeland for war.
For more than a century, US imperialism has cloaked its interventions in the language of friendship while perpetuating an unequal and exploitative relationship while quelling liberation movements that genuinely asserts self-determination. Philippine history bears witness to the devastating consequences of this relationship—from colonial massacres and military occupation to repeated violations of national sovereignty. Let us not forget the war crimes they committed between 1899 to 1902 which killed Filipino civilians. Hardly that this portion in history is ever thought or discoursed in the Philippine public education and public square.
This reality is even more pronounced today through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which has expanded US military access to strategic facilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. These arrangements have effectively opened Philippine territory, ports, and strategic locations for US military operations, increasingly positioning the country as a staging ground for geopolitical confrontation in the Asia-Pacific including armed aggression. No genuine friend turns another nation into a pawn in an impending war.
Likewise, the US-led Pax Silica initiative advances the integration of Philippine resources, infrastructure, and industries into the broader interests of the US military-industrial complex under the guise of supply chain resilience and economic cooperation. Rather than strengthening genuine national development, these initiatives deepen foreign control over the country’s strategic assets while tying its future to great-power rivalry.
The CNL remains critical of the role of US military intervention in the Philippines and elsewhere, including the United States’ support for Israel’s genocidal campaigns and ongoing assault on the Palestinian people; and assault to other independent nations and people’s progressive movements, asserting democratic rights, sovereignty, and self-determination.
The Christological call for friendship is to stand with the oppressed, reject militarism, and expose systems of domination that perpetuate inequality, violence, and injustice. We likewise condemn the Marcos Jr. administration for advancing the geopolitical agenda of the United States by further transforming the Philippines into an extension of the US military network and a hub for military logistics, weapons deployment, and regional power projection.
No true friend deceives another into surrendering its sovereignty. No true friend profits from another’s insecurity. No true friend prepares another’s homeland for war. Our true friends are the revolutionaries, the masses, the people who continue to inspire us to move and challenge the decrepit system movement for the people.
Our true friends are the revolutionaries,
the masses, the people who continue
to inspire us to move and challenge the
decrepit system movement for the people.
As revolutionaries and followers of Christ, we are called instead to stand with the Filipino people, and overturn a decrepit system, and struggle for national liberation, away from the shackles of neocolonialism. Our truest are the patriotic and the progressives and revolutionaries, the basic masses, the exploited, and oppressed working peoples, who work and fight for genuine reforms and liberation.
Standing against US imperialism, is to be critical of our relationship with power. Our faith always calls us to the side of suffering. For us in the Christians for National Liberation, we find our only hope with our friends, with our comrades in achieving genuine global peace through revolutionary wars and the people’s struggle for their liberation.
Down with US imperialism!
