The relationship between the United States and the Philippine military has gone through various phases over the years, from the existence of formal US bases at Clark and Subic Bay to tensions over human rights abuses, from US support for Philippine government counterinsurgency campaign to a recent warming as the Philippine government offers the US access to bases for use in deterring, and possibly fighting a war with, China.
No matter how attractive using Philippine territory and facilities may strike American policymakers in their bid to deter (or even defeat) China, that should not translate into awarding the Philippine military a license to wantonly kill. Just this April, after all, the Philippine military massacred 19 people in Toboso. The military claims those slain belonged to the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Rights groups, however, have pointed out that the group included activists, journalists, students, and US citizens.
Among those killed were RJ Ledesma, Alyssa Alano, Maureen Santuyo, and Errol Wendel. Also killed in the attack was Lyle Prijoles, a County Council member of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), who committed over a decade of his life to organizing for genuine peace in the Philippines.
The killings are reminiscent of the worst days of the regime of Rodrigo Duterte, who served as president between 2016 and 2022. During his rule, thousands of families saw relatives and friends killed as part of the government’s “war on drugs.” And it is important to remind ourselves that the majority of the victims of Duterte’s reign of terror were critics of his regime, not drug traffickers.
Duterte’s successor, current Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has pledged to pursue a more benign approach to fighting drug addiction, as evidenced by the title of a September 2022 article on his promise, “Philippine Leader Marcos Promises to Dial Back Deadly Drug War.”
Unfortunately, Marcos’s commitment to turn the page from the horrors of the Duterte regime has been more rhetorical than real. Carlos Conde, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, spoke to this fact while providing testimony to the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights in September 2023. “While the new [Marcos] administration has been less confrontational and more diplomatic than the previous one,” he said, “that does not mean that the human rights situation in the country has improved.”
Even Marcos’s promise to demilitarize the drug war, according to Conde, had gone largely unfulfilled. The new president had insisted that the drug war Duterte launched would “have a ‘new face’ aimed at drug rehabilitation,” but the killings continued and the police still enjoyed “wide authority … to conduct anti-drug raids.”
Against this backdrop of impunity for murders, Washington has too frequently cast aside its commitment to promote human rights principles as part of its foreign policy approach to the Philippines. Are better relations with repressive regimes the world over really worth sacrificing the most basic human rights standards?
Supporting human rights, it goes without saying, is not meant to serve as a form of charity. Rather, it is the foundation of promoting democracy and stability in key regions around the world. After all, repressive regimes are more reckless and more likely to aim aggression at neighboring countries and their own citizens alike. More importantly, such regimes undermine the prospects for democratic input in the country’s trajectory, an essential prerequisite for sound foreign policy. Given the longstanding ties between the United States and the Philippine military — with the US arming and training Philippine soldiers and using the country’s military facilities — its armed forces’ abuses only hurt American credibility.
US-Philippine military ties have become much closer as Washington seeks to bolster its military presence in the Pacific with the goal of “containing” China. Actions have included major military exercises and the deployment of missiles to the Philippines. The Balikatan 2026 joint exercise focused on missile defense, including the ability to intercept unmanned aerial vehicles. An annual event, this year’s exercise was the largest in the history of US-Philippine military relations. Beyond exercises, the US has also deployed a new “rotational force” of troops to the Philippines that will deploy there periodically against the possibility of a conflict with China.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, US arms transfers to the Philippines over the past decade have included Black Hawk transport helicopters, C-130 transport planes, air-to-air missiles, anti-tank missiles, training aircraft, and anti-submarine sonar. Prior arms deliveries have included grenade launchers, sniper rifles, and drones. It is quite possible that US-supplied arms or US-trained troops were involved in the massacre. Has Congress bothered trying to find out?
The April massacre in Toboso only underscores the need to reevaluate this relationship. Philippine armed forces allegedly fired indiscriminately and conducted aerial strafing. On top of the deaths of students, journalists, farmers, and human rights advocates, the attacks reportedly displaced more than 650 people in the immediate area and another 200 residents living between Escalante City and Toboso.
The local branch of the Commission on Human Rights in the Philippines has already launched a probe into the incident, and the ASEAN Parliamentarians on Human Rights condemned the attack as part of a long pattern of state repression. Doubly concerning is the fact that the Philippines currently chairs ASEAN.
Although human rights groups and US-based watchdogs have called for American lawmakers to help bring justice to the families of the victims, Congress has remained largely quiet in the face of the deadly assault. Meanwhile, arms transfers and military cooperation between the US and the Philippines remain uninterrupted.
Such silence won’t help the United States compete for influence with China, nor will building new military bases, hocking more arms to repressive regimes, or cooperating with militaries that systematically violate human rights. None of this should come as a surprise, though. American policy toward China, of course, is woefully out of balance, focusing on winning a potential war rather than preventing it. And standing by with folded arms while massacres happen won’t move Beijing.
The Trump administration, in any case, is neither inclined nor competent enough to hold the Marcos regime accountable. Just look further back at the country’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or its recent military assault against Iran. These are object lessons in policy failure. As unlikely as it now seems, lawmakers could step in to fill the current moral void. It would serve as a small step toward a more realistic, more effective approach to relations with the rest of the world. And without such action, we should all expect that the April massacre in Toboso will not be the last of its kind.
Top photo: US airmen are photographed en route to the Philippines to participate in the Balikatan joint exercise in 2026 (Jade M. Caldwell/US Air Force/Wikimedia Commons)
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