The Asia-Pacific News Update expands on the Afghanistan News Update, providing updates, resources, and analysis on U.S. imperialism across the regions—from the Philippines, Korea and Hawai’i to Palestine, Iran and Afghanistan. With each edition, we aim to strengthen the public’s awareness and understanding of U.S.-led militarization across Asia and the Pacific, while mobilizing support for regional struggles against the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination.
In this edition of the Asia-Pacific News Update, we speak with Ket Maarte, co-founder and chairperson of Anakbayan Philadelphia. Maarte helped start the chapter during her third year in college and has since then chosen to dedicate her time to serving the Filipino people, especially the Filipino youth in the city of Philadelphia. Anakbayan Philadelphia has grown throughout the years with integrated cultural events and educational studies that deepen members' and community members’ understandings of a genuinely free Philippines.
Asia-Pacific News Update: What is Anakbayan? How did you come to form as an international youth organization? What are your members united around?
Ket Maarte: Anakbayan is a youth and student-led mass organization fighting for the national sovereignty and genuine democracy of the Philippines. It was founded on the 134th birthday of Filipino revolutionary Andres Bonifacio on November 30, 1998, when young people in Tondo, Manila, recognized the historic role of the youth in advancing social change against the rotten system. Our commitment to youth-led revolutionary change motivated the emergence of our Philadelphia Chapter.
This was during the uprisings for George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, as well as the housing struggles in the summer of 2020, when students from Temple University in Philadelphia took action as young Filipinos in the United States. In solidarity with the Black liberation struggle, we founded the Philadelphia chapter and continue to recognize that the militarization of the Filipino people and the policing of African/Black people are intrinsically linked by the same problem of U.S. imperialism. Uniting our members, Anakbayan identifies three basic problems of the Philippines: U.S. imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. It is important to end them in order to change the semi-colonial and semi-feudal nature of the Philippines. The issues of land, education, social services, and employment are the long-term and immediate problems of the Filipino people.
Asia-Pacific News Update: Can you give a brief overview of how U.S. imperialism targets the Philippines? And for those who may not know, what is the National Democratic Struggle in the Philippines, and how is it central to your work?
Ket Maarte: U.S. imperialism targets the Philippines through neoliberal tactics to keep the nation politically, culturally, militarily, and economically dependent on the United States. The reactionary U.S. government will propagate the narrative that the Philippines and the United States have been “allies” since the 1898 Spanish-American War. However, the U.S. purchased the Philippines – along with Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba – against the will of the masses of people. Even after “granting” the Philippines a faux independence in 1946, the Philippines maintains its feudal and colonial relationship with the United States, through the exportation of its raw materials and perpetual economic crisis. The United States is not afraid to use the Philippines as collateral damage in their conquest to strengthen their empire in the Asia-Pacific by making it into a military base and exploiting the Filipino people for labor.
Anakbayan’s fight for national democracy recognizes that the issues of the Philippines will change once we achieve national sovereignty, allowing us to practice genuine democracy that prioritizes meeting the needs of the Filipino masses. The class composition of the Philippines is 75% farmers/peasants and 15% workers. With the Philippine government failing to meet the needs of 90% of the population, it is our goal to end the government ruled by U.S. imperialists, bureaucrat capitalists, and big landlords who will throw the Filipino people under the bus for a few more dollars in their pockets. We want genuine development of the Philippines, economically, politically, and culturally, that does not come at the expense of Filipino livelihood and self-determination.
Asia-Pacific News Update: What are some key national or international campaigns of Anakbayan? What connections can you make to other anti-imperialist and national liberation struggles, especially those led by African people?
Ket Maarte: BAYAN USA, the multi-sectoral alliance for national democracy in the Philippines, of which we are a part, is waging the Defend Migrant Workers campaign – calling on the Philippine government to defend Filipino migrants targeted by U.S. state agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) – and the U.S. Out of the Philippines campaign – aiming to end U.S. military occupation of our country. Both campaigns not only highlight the worsening conditions of Filipino people due to U.S. imperialism, but also connect it to the complacency and inaction of the Philippine government. The clear militarization and destruction of the Philippines’ land and people are connected to the neglect of the Filipino people by the Philippine government. The Philippine government is more focused on supporting the U.S. in pursuing a war with China rather than defending Filipino people.
During Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo’s visit to the United States, he did not take action to support and free the Filipino nationals wrongly detained in ICE facilities. Instead of actually providing solutions to help the Filipino people, he met with Marco Rubio in Washington, D.C. to continue their plans for war in the Asia-Pacific. It is also important to note that Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. also visited Washington D.C. in July 2025, where met with Donald Trump along with the U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, to discuss the increasing U.S. military presence in the Philippines. The meetings solidified the construction of the ammunition hub in Subic Bay and the Luzon Economic Corridor, both of which are promoted under the guise of protection and strengthening the supply chain of the Philippines. However, there is no coincidence that the Luzon Economic Corridor, an infrastructure meant to improve the transport of goods and people across the Philippines, is going to the places where there are bases the U.S. military is using. Marcos agreed to create the Philippines as a military outpost while neglecting the Filipino migrants that were wrongly detained and the Filipino people who were severely impacted by the typhoon in Bicol, Philippines.
We must wage these two campaigns to connect the suffering of Philippine society with the expansion of U.S. imperialism globally. As the local chapter in Philadelphia, we have pursued these campaigns through public exhibitions, mobilizations, and political education. We also aim to have Filipino students in institutions of higher education and, most importantly, the Filipino migrants and workers see themselves as a participating force in the movement for a liberated Philippines.
We connect the U.S. Out of the Philippines campaign with other national liberation struggles because it is easy to see how U.S. militarism has affected our homelands. We specifically work with Palestinian- and Korean-led organizations, like Philadelphia Students for Justice in Palestine, Koreans4Decolonization, and Korea Peace Committee, to further our analysis which connects our shared histories and current conditions under U.S. imperialism. We also want to make concrete connections to and work with more African liberation struggles, like those fighting for a free Haiti and Sahel.
The growing imperial power of the United States and the international fight against it is interrelated to the clear neglect of the Filipino people and the plunder of the nation. As we see the priority of war rising to meet the unending demand for U.S. imperialism to expand, the Filipino people have no infrastructure or plan to ensure their safety and security during floods and typhoons. Instead, the bureaucrat capitalists and landlords continue to exploit the people to fill up their pockets. Just this past month, it was revealed that there are over 60 flood control projects in the Philippines that are supposedly approved by the government and completed on paper that do not actually exist because the tycoons heading the projects pocketed the money. That is not an isolated issue unique to the Philippines. This is a symptom of the three basic problems of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism.
The struggle for a liberated Philippines is a part of the internationalist movement. Anakbayan Philadelphia specifically organizes around the Philippines because the liberation of one of the semi-colonies will weaken the octopus that is the U.S. empire. Being in solidarity with other national liberation struggles ensures that the United States is losing its power everywhere. The Filipino people are the decisive factor to liberating their own homeland while working together with our Palestinian, African, and Korean comrades to achieve global liberation.
Asia-Pacific News Update: As the Philadelphia chapter of Anakbayan, what campaigns are you developing or carrying out locally? How do these campaigns connect to ongoing struggles in the Philippines or elsewhere?
Ket Maarte: Our chapter is working on developing programming to address the conditions of our people in Philadelphia and stand in solidarity with all workers, especially during the recent AFSCME D.C.33 union strikes, which is a majority Black union of public sanitation, maintenance, and other workers. The city of Philadelphia is dealing with the consequences of their actions as the municipal workers' union, with over 9,000 city employees, stands against their exploitation.
We recognize the right to unionize and be compensated for labor with a livable wage, which most Filipinos in the diaspora lack. Filipinos usually look for work outside of the Philippines because there are not enough financial opportunities or sustained industries for people to remain in the nation. One of the largest exports from the Philippines is labor, and there are so many Filipinos who have to go abroad to keep their families fed and housed. The traumatic separation of families is only one symptom of the state’s neglect and plunder. Once Filipinos are employed, they still face other forms of workplace negligence and exploitation, including unpaid overtime hours or no holiday pay, and no benefits while practically working full time hours and performing responsibilities beyond their job descriptions. It is also not uncommon for overseas Filipino workers to get trafficked by their employers and have their passports taken from them. This is prevalent with domestic workers, an industry that is predominately women.
Like the city of Philadelphia, the Philippine Consulate/Embassy is supposed to provide resources and make sure that their constituents are secure in their positions. Yet, that will never be the case when bureaucrat capitalists, like Philadelphia Mayor Cherrelle Parker and Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo, couldn’t care less about the working people. State violence and negligence will occur locally and internationally if politicians in power are willing to sell their people out for money and status.
Asia-Pacific News Update: What are some resources you recommend to people interested in learning more about the struggle for national liberation in the Philippines? And how can individuals and organizations support, collaborate, or join your work?
Ket Maarte: We study and conduct studies of Philippine Society and Revolution by Jose Maria Sison under his guerrilla pseudonym, Amada Guerrero. It touches on the historical and current context on why the Philippines is a semi-feudal and semi-colonial nation that has a liberation struggle fighting for national democracy. We highly recommend either reading or participating study with any BAYAN organization to deepen your understanding of the Philippine struggle. There is also an entire revolutionary curriculum that our members take as part of our organizational and educational development.
Anyone aged 13 to 35 years old and interested in the genuine liberation of the Philippines is eligible to join Anakbayan. We focus on organizing Filipino youth and students to care about the issues of the Philippines and how they relate to the local issues of Philadelphia. Other than studies and educational discussions, we make sure that we are rooted in our mass base and integrate with the Filipino communities we love to serve. For organizations, we would love to schedule bilateral meetings to better understand the common thread of our work and find ways to support each other with intention and within our capacities. One of the greatest contributions to our work is also making donations! This year is the five year anniversary of our chapter, and as a grassroots organization, we are raising $5,000 to celebrate and help sustain our work locally.
There are so many ways to get involved with us! If you are curious about what that entails, you can reach out to us nationally at our website or email here: anakbayanusa@gmail.com
ADDITIONAL READINGS AND RESOURCES
Araling Aktibista (Activist Study Guide)
2020 by Communist Party of the Philippines, National Education Department
The required reading for activists in the Filipino revolutionary movement with essential texts for studying and forming revolutionary practice.
Condemn and Counter U.S. Imperialist Aggression and War in the Philippines
February 25, 2025 by Robert Reid
February 2025 marked the 126th. anniversary of the Philippine-American war and the start of U.S. imperialist domination in the Philippines. The continued and expanded presence and operations of U.S. military forces in the Philippines, and their support and direction to the Marcos Jr. administration must be condemned and opposed as clear acts of U.S. imperialist aggression, military intervention and war.
Naval Drills near Guam and the Philippines Coincide with China’s Military Parade
September 5, 2025 by Stars and Stripes
In the Philippine Sea the United States conducted a joint naval exercise with Australia, Canada and the Philippines, and a separate exercise near Guam with Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The destructive exercises were planned to coincide with a major international parade in Beijing that marked the 80th. anniversary of the end of World War II.
The Philippines: A Past Revisited
1975 by Renato Constatino
Chronicles the history of the Philippines from a nationalist perspective in the centuries of the Filipino masses' fight for freedom and independence during Spanish and U.S. colonial rule. Before this book, Philippine history was taught through the colonial U.S. lens which served as propaganda in support of U.S. militarization of the archipelago. As the Philippines is still under foreign influence, this history serves as a guide to the people of today on how to achieve liberation and sovereignty.
Philippine Society and Revolution
July 30, 1970 by Amado Guerrero (Jose Maria Sison)
Sison’s landmark text played a pivotal role in revitalizing the Filipino Left, which had been weakened by the old Communist Party of the Philippines’s revisionism. Sison audaciously provides a bottom-up history of the Philippines, material analysis of the nation’s feudal and colonial basis, a description of the nation’s unique class structure, and a program for militant revolution. Philippine Society and Revolution is a pivotal text for understanding the history of the Filipino Left and for grasping a dialectical materialist account of the Philippines’ colonial history and socialist possibilities.
November 2, 1968 by Amado Guerrero (Jose Maria Sison)
This brief article stresses the significance of the youth movement in the global 1968 revolutionary struggles for mobilizing the masses. Sison’s crucial insights resonate today with the student movement for Palestine and broader questions about the relationship between youth and the masses.
Mar 13, 2024 by Boo Chanco for the Philippine Institute for Development Studies
Chanco summarizes the Philippine’s increasing reliance on overseas Filipino workers’ remittances, the “brain drain” from the high emigration rates, and problematic overreliance on remittances in place of national development. The article is essential for understanding the economic connection between the Filipino diaspora and nation.