The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) condemns the United States government for exempting its USD 500 million military aid to the Philippines from US President Donald Trump’s suspension of all US foreign aid.

The security aid, approved by former US President Joe Biden, was announced in 2024 and will be allotted to modernizing the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine Coast Guard.

The US military aid will not be beneficial to the Filipino workers and people. Human rights organizations in the Philippines have been condemning the AFP for its rampant human rights violations – from abductions to extra-judicial killings of activists, and from violations of international humanitarian law to bombing of peasant communities.

AFP modernization will benefit only the Ferdinand Marcos Jr regime and the country’s biggest elites who want to silence dissent in order to entrench themselves in power and expand their wealth.

Modernizing the Philippine Coast Guard, meanwhile, is part of US efforts to militarily encircle and contain China. It will benefit the US, not the Filipino workers and people. The US is preparing for war with China and will drag the Philippines with it. The Filipino workers and people want peaceful relations with China and a peaceful resolution of the country’s territorial dispute with the Asian superpower.

The Philippines should stand for economic, political and military independence from the US. If the US will offer aid to the Philippines, this aid should go to much-needed social services like health and education, or to economic programs like agricultural modernization and industrialization.

While Trump has decided to push through with giving military aid to the Philippines, he continues to freeze US foreign aid for education and health in the country. This highlights the aggressively militaristic nature of his presidency – supporting the Marcos Jr regime’s repression of the Filipino workers and people and bolstering US military capabilities against China.

We also condemn the Marcos Jr government’s mendicant attitude towards US foreign aid, welcoming the military aid’s release while asking for the unfreezing of foreign aid for education and health.

The US is only looking after its own interests, not the interests of the Filipino workers and people. The Philippines should stand on its feet and not be dependent on the US. It should prioritize modernizing the economy over modernizing the military and the coast guard. This way, it can provide for the needs of its people and not be dependent on any foreign power.