If US President Barack Obama is indeed serious in giving warning to dictatorial governments, he should first crack his whip on US imperialism’s number one lackey in Southeast Asia, Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

During his inauguration, Obama fearlessly stated, “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

In the last few years of the reign of Gloria Arroyo, she has ruled through corruption in the highest echelons of the Philippine government, from the ZTE broadband deal, the agriculture fertilizer fund scam, the Euro generals, the endless payolas to congressmen during times of intense political dissent, among others. The list goes on and the basis for dismantling US relations with a corrupt Philippine president under a supposed reformist leader is clear.

Moreover, Gloria Arroyo’s government has been involved in the systematic, protracted and widescale execution of political dissenters in the country, through its implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya I and II, two counter-insurgency campaigns of this government targeting legitimate and legal political activists in the cities and the countryside. Under this clear silencing of dissent, more than one thousand victims have resulted, notwithstanding the enforced disappearances of hundreds more.

The list of her crimes against the people does not end here. Mrs. Arroyo and the former Bush Administration are also responsible for the continued presence of US military troops in the Philippines through the Balikatan exercises due to her unrelenting pursuit of the Visiting Forces Agreement. The VFA is a clearly militarist treaty between the US and the Philippines done in the guise of war games and community services whilst covertly engaging in military operations through intelligence gathering and widespread reconnaissance missions against Filipino nationals. In the next few weeks, the Balikatan will now extend to provinces in Southern Luzon, and we believe that US-Philippine security forces will use military exercises as a ploy to build their intelligence database against the revolutionary movement active in these provinces, plan military operations in insurgency-led areas and subject innocent civilians and communities to danger.

As such, there is no other option than oppose the holding of exercises, and we believe that it is within the power of President Obama to halt continuing US military operations in the Philippines in the same spirit as his plan to close Guantanamo Bay and order the immediate pullout of US security forces in Iraq for ruling through corruption, deceit and the silencing of dissent.

In all of these, we issue a clear challenge to President Obama – Make good your promise of change, and the change we need in the Philippines is the pullout of US troops from the Philippines and a rejection of American support to Gloria Arroyo, whom we believe is among those world leaders in the wrong side of history.