By Partido Lakas ng Masa via Facebook
Convened by the International Peoples’ Assembly (IPA) and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the conference brought together around 70 delegates from 17 countries across Asia and beyond to advance a common struggle against imperialist aggression, militarization, and foreign domination, while strengthening solidarity among peoples’ movements fighting for sovereignty, self-determination, and social justice.
During the conference, PLM National Council Member and Youth Coordinator Khyl Ramos spoke in the panel, “The Far Right, Authoritarianism, and the Domestic Infrastructure of Empire,” alongside Dr. Hilmar Farid (Megawati Institute, Indonesia), Fatima Shahzad (Progressive Students Federation, Pakistan), Muhammad Zikri Bin Abdul Rahman (Pusat Sejarah Rakyat, Malaysia), and Aishe Ghosh (Jawaharlal Nehru University, India).
The presentation, “Dynastic Authoritarianism, U.S. Imperialism, and the Struggle for People’s Power in the Philippines,” examined how the rehabilitation of the Marcos dynasty has reinforced U.S. imperialist influence through historical distortion, elite political alliances, and the consolidation of authoritarian rule. It argued that political dynasties, elite democracy, and the rise of far-right forces have become the domestic infrastructure through which U.S. imperialism secures and expands its political, military, and strategic interests in the Philippines. Situating these developments within their historical context, the analysis traced the evolution of U.S.-Philippine military relations: from the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty, the 1999 Visiting Forces Agreement, the 2002 Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, and the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), to the Marcos Jr. administration’s 2023 expansion of EDCA sites from five to nine. These agreements, with Balikatan exercises, have increasingly institutionalized U.S. military access and strategic influence, deepening military dependence, undermining Philippine sovereignty, and further entrenching U.S. imperial domination in the country.
The discussion also examined the U.S.-led Pax Silica initiative as the emerging technological infrastructure of the empire. The global race for critical minerals, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and data centers is accelerating extractive industries that dispossess indigenous peoples, displace peasant and urban poor communities, and intensify ecological destruction. Far from being neutral development projects, these technological infrastructures increasingly serve strategic military objectives by compounding surveillance, expanding war-making capacities, and reinforcing imperialist aggression, including the ongoing genocide in Palestine and other military operations backed by the United States and Israel. Situated within the broader U.S.-China geopolitical rivalry, the presentation argued that digital infrastructure, resource extraction, and technological supply chains have become new frontiers of contestation while exposing communities to the devastating risks of great-power conflict.
In response, the presentation highlighted PLM’s work in building a socialist alternative through grassroots organizing, chapter-building, mass campaigns, political education, and international solidarity. Delegates were introduced to the PLM Socialist School, Ang Masa ang Pag-asa (PLM’s official podcast), and Ang Masa para sa Sosyalismo (PLM’s online journal) as initiatives to strengthen political consciousness and organize workers, women, youth, and other sectors in the struggle against imperialism, authoritarianism, and capitalist exploitation.
The panel concluded by reaffirming that genuine sovereignty requires more than resisting foreign military intervention. It requires establishing a government of the masses, one led by workers and peoples’ movements rather than political dynasties, oligarchs, and foreign interests. This entails reversing privatization in strategic sectors, advancing democratic public ownership and workers’ participation, pursuing planned industrial development based on the Filipino people’s needs, and building an ecologically just future.
One of the conference’s principal outcomes was the adoption of the Colombo Declaration, which formally launched the Hands Off Asia network under the initiative of the IPA and Tricontinental. The declaration outlines the network’s core demands, affirms a shared vision of an Asia free from imperialism, and advances coordination among anti-imperialist movements across the continent in pursuit of sovereignty, peace, and peoples’ solidarity.
PLM joins the call for an end to militarization, authoritarianism, and military-dominated rule across Asia, and for the dismantling of imperialist structures that deny peoples the right to determine their own future.
Shut the Pax Down!
Down with U.S. Imperialism!
Hands Off Asia!
Imperyalismo, Ibagsak!
July 31, 2026
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