June 18, 2024 | 8:00 PM
On June 14, 2024, the Reuters News Agency released a comprehensive report detailing the covert operations that the U.S. Military launched during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 in order to discourage unvaccinated Filipinos from availing of the earlier China-donated Sinovac vaccines via a social media disinformation and black propaganda campaign under the hashtag of #ChinaAngVirus.
To quote a senior military officer from the Pentagon who was involved in this secret operation, “We weren’t looking at this from a public health perspective. We were looking at how we could drag China through the mud.”
The shamelessness of the US Military is astonishing given that during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Trump regime in collaboration with the US pharmaceutical industry was more interested in pursuing an “America-First” policy, as well as ensuring maximum profits on the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, as opposed to providing it as a public good for the world’s peoples resulting in delayed shipments, high prices, and logistical hurdles before the Filipino people and other Global South Nations could themselves avail of these.
Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) condemns in the strongest terms the deadly covert operations conducted by US Imperialism against the Filipino people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Due to the US-led Western imperialist bloc’s geopolitical maneuvering against China, a rising rival economic power, tens of thousands of ordinary Filipinos – men, women, and children – were led to their untimely deaths wrought by the enduring atmosphere of anti-Chinese hysteria and widespread vaccine hesitancy that continues to haunt us to this day.
PLM joins in calls of progressive groups to call on the US Ambassador to the Philippines to explain its abhorrent and deadly anti-vaccine covert operations, as well as for an immediate investigation by the House of Representatives and the Senate into the current extent of US psyops and disinformation campaigns in the country.
Amid increasing tensions on the WPS / SCS, it is highly likely that US covert operations are already being conducted in order to drum up hype and manufacture public consent among Filipinos for a future imperialist proxy war against China.
PLM reiterates its calls to the Marcos regime to cease acting as a puppet for US Imperialism’s agenda in the Asia-Pacific region, and to resume diplomatic talks on the WPS / SCS territorial disputes through multilateral engagements with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). A policy of active non-alignment with neither the US nor the PRC is the only correct strategic posture to ensure our long-term national and regional interests for peaceful coexistence and development.
While efforts at resuming diplomacy are yet to be made, the PRC must respect our sovereign rights in the West Philippines Sea / the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone (PEEZ), and immediately cease actions such as the use of water cannons, and the blocking of fishing vessels, so as not to play into the trap of US Imperialism to trigger a proxy war in the region.
PLM also reiterates calls to end all unequal military treaties with the US that render the Philippines as a mere proxy state, such as the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), as well as an end to US Military presence in the Philippines from the regularly-held joint-military exercises, up to the remaining US Military Bases still actively operating in the country.
Finally, PLM asserts the need for a long-term solution in the form of establishing a Shared Regional Area of Essential Commons (SRAEC) in the Southeast Asian Sea to ensure peaceful coexistence founded on mutual respect of territorial sovereignty of the ASEAN countries. It is only in pursuing such a policy that our respective peoples’ long-term national interests for peace and development in the region can be ensured, as well as to frustrate any future attempts by Western Imperialist warmongers to stoke up the flames of war in our region.
References:
[1] Reuters News Agency. (2024, June 14). Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/…/special…/usa-covid-propaganda/
[3] Valmonte, K. (2024, June 17). Probe into Pentagon’s alleged anti-vax campaign sought. Rappler. https://www.rappler.com/…/probe-pentagon-alleged-anti…/
[4] Southeast Asian Left. (2022, June 2). Southeast Asian left responds to US-led ‘triad of aggression’. Green Left. https://www.greenleft.org.au/…/southeast-asian-left…
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