Build an Anti-Imperialist Bloc of the Masses!

This May Day, the Spartacist Group Pilipinas calls on the masses of workers, students, peasants, and urban poor to come out in the streets and plazas across the country and protest the depredations of the United States Empire and the self-serving bourgeois cliques and pro-U.S. politicians. What is sharply posed is the defense of the masses of the people. A first step would be to bring together for May Day all the leftist parties, the trade unions, the popular committees and organizations of the oppressed masses under the red banner of an Anti-Imperialist Bloc.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest war against Iran has delivered unprecedented economic shocks to the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Despite the havoc already caused by Trump’s military rampage, the Marcos regime still allowed over 17,000 U.S. and allied troops including missile forces into the country, pushing the Philippines closer to armed confrontation with China over Taiwan and the South China Sea. With pressure increasing at the base of society, the U.S.-lackey government of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is rolling out repressive measures like the Safer Cities initiative, which target the youth, workers and the urban poor population. Reminiscent of former President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and pandemic curfew, the public security measures reveal how little support the Marcos regime has among the majority of the population.

The fatal combination of the U.S.-led wars, the downwards economic spiral, and the impending super El Niño event is careening the country to national catastrophe. It is urgent for socialists to act now so the masses of the people are in a strong position to push back and defend themselves against the U.S. imperialists and the ruling bourgeois oligarchy! We strongly urge leftist militants and trade unionists aligned with the National Democrats of BAYAN, Partido Lakas ng Masa, Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya, SOCIALISTA, and others in the Marxist left to unite for May Day and march under the red banner of an Anti-Imperialist Bloc of the Masses of workers and the oppressed.

Following the ebb of the anti-corruption movement in December 2025, the left and labor leaders have been unsuccessful to mobilize popular support for protests against rising fuel prices and the imperialist war. This failure is the result of the loss of their credibility among the masses, when the leaders of the left and organized labor repeated the “People Power” strategy in the struggle against the Marcos/Duterte oligarchs. Instead of mobilizing the masses of workers, students and the poor in a struggle for power, leftist personalities like former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño and labor lawyer Luke Espiritu helped to depolarize the sharpening political situation. The anti-corruption movement was rendered harmless by tying it to the socially conservative and pro-U.S. forces of the Church hierarchy, the generals and the bourgeois liberal politicians, who each had one foot firmly planted in the Marcos camp.

Tama Na! We cannot have another repeat of this reversal. We have had enough defeats. On May Day, there needs to be a pole to rally the masses around Anti-Imperialist Opposition. As first steps to building this opposition, the Spartacists propose:

No to bourgeois liberal politicians and their apologists in the May Day contingents! Everyone knows the liberals and their hangers-on won’t fight the U.S. imperialists. Capitulating to the liberals led to the defeat of the revolutionary upsurge sparked by the EDSA February 1986 Popular Uprising. If on May Day, politicians like Sen. Risa Hontiveros, FFW honcho Sonny Matula and Kamanggagawa Rep. Eli San Fernando insist that they are on the side of the working masses, then let Hontiveros & Co. take up the banner of the national liberation struggle and demand the total, unconditional, and immediate severance of the U.S.-Philippine military alliance!

Meanwhile, leftist figures like ACT Rep. Antonio Tinio and Rep. Sarah Elago of Gabriela Women’s Party, can pepper their speeches with rousing anti-U.S. phrases and at the same time placate the Trillion Peso March Movement liberals who seek to keep the pro-U.S. Marcos regime in power, and as a result contain mass militancy within the limits acceptable to the ruling class.

This long-standing partnership with the liberals has caused the left to lose credibility among the masses, who flock to right-wing Vice President Sara Duterte, Gen Z populists like CongressMeow Barzaga, and the Dutertista MAISUG forces because they are seen as the only ones fighting for national dignity and against the corrupt political establishment under Marcos. We must win MAISUG supporters away from class enemies like Sara Duterte and Barzaga.

The trade unions must get involved in the struggle of all oppressed! We appeal to the left to make the workers movement the main force of our May Day mobilization and of other struggles. As Marxists and communists, we have to go to the workers and win them over to the anti-imperialist struggle. The May Day trade union struggle will not advance on the basis of economism pushed by the leaders of the National Wages Coalition. The workers movement should not fight on a narrow economic basis or to confine our struggles to our own little corner of industry.

We cannot divorce the rice-and-fish issues from the bigger questions of U.S. war on Iran or U.S. control over the Philippine economy. The fight for a living wage, better living conditions and national development requires a struggle against the imperialists and the government which enforces neocolonial slavery. Workers have the social power to bring the economy to a total standstill and to seize concessions from the foreign finance capitalists and their oligarch partners.

To propel the struggle forward, we need to fight as communists against the existing leaders like FFW’s Sonny Matula, Raymond Democrito Mendoza of TUCP and SENTRO’s Josua Mata and expose them to the membership for their ties to the imperialist exploiters.

Overcome sectarianism in the left. Marxists in the Philippines have much less influence today than in 1986-1987, when the EDSA Popular Uprising led to a brief period of revolutionary opportunities. As Marxists, we cannot ignore that the left everywhere is smaller, isolated and divided. It is urgently needed to overcome sectarianism. Socialist and left-wing tendencies must be able to have comradely discussion and debate matters of strategy. We need to find out how we got to this situation and how we can turn it around.

With deepening social crisis, Marcos will surely tighten the screws of political repression in this country. As Marxists we cannot condemn the oppressed for defending themselves, by any means necessary, against attacks unleashed by the bourgeois oligarchy. We demand justice for the Negros 19, the Alfad family and other victims of the U.S.-lackey government. The left needs to unite those targeted by state repression, despite our disagreements with their strategy and program. We must be able to stand shoulder to shoulder in united defense, or we will hang separately.

Contrary to what many leftists argue, the problem is not lack of militancy. A correct strategy is needed so the militancy is not wasted. What is missing today is a political struggle against the elements in the left and workers movement who want to chain the struggle and organizations of the masses to imperialism.

In order to gain political influence and authority among the oppressed, we have to show that only Marxists can provide solutions to achieve the burning national, democratic and social aspirations of the masses of workers, peasants and other oppressed. This requires struggle against the illusions of the masses in the competing factions of the vicious Philippine oligarchy, whether that be the imperialist-backed Marcos dynasty, the reactionary Duterte political clan, or the bourgeois liberal lady bosses like pro-U.S. Leni Robredo and Zionist-friendly Joy Belmonte.

As Spartacists, our perspective is to work for political realignment of the left, here and abroad. We seek to regroup with the truly revolutionary elements that are today spread across various organizations as a result of coincidence or political unclarity.

On May Day, let us join forces and mobilize in our greatest numbers under the Anti-Imperialist Bloc of the Masses. A show of strength and boldness will inspire workers, students, peasants, urban poor and other oppressed layers to rally behind the red banners of our anti-imperialist contingents. It will raise the oppressed to their feet, help polarize the country along class lines and make it all the more difficult for the bosses and reactionary forces to undermine our movement.

Build the Anti-Imperialist Bloc of the Masses!