The National Democratic Front (NDF) condemns the US-Marcos regime and the Armed Forces of the Philippines for conducting a series of expanding live-fire exercises and war games, which endanger civilians, disrupt livelihoods and divert public resources from the people’s urgent needs.

Under “Bantay Kalayaan,” the AFP’s so-called “unilateral defense plan,” military drills are presented as preparations for external defense. But peasant and fishing communities bear the costs: disrupted fishing and farming, restricted access to land and sea, canceled classes and exposure to the dangers of live fire. Public funds should meet people’s needs, not bankroll military spectacles that serve foreign power projection.

Exercise Surigao Sentinel 2026 was held Oct. 22-25 across Surigao City and the Dinagat Islands. It included live-fire and strike operations, as well as maritime and emergency-response scenarios. The local government was even made to share in the costs for hosting the military exercises, reportedly spending one million pesos for the exercises.

In Bugasong, Antique, Army and Air Force exercises began Oct. 19 and included air support and artillery operations. In Sipalay City, residents are being barred from designated mountain areas, farms and grazing grounds during artillery firing scheduled for Oct. 29-30. Such restrictions take land and livelihoods away from residents in the guise of “military readiness.”

The AFP has also held SIMEX “Aksyon Lucena” and regional exercises involving special forces, police, the Coast Guard and emergency-response agencies in Lucena City, Batangas and Quezon. In Sulu, the Army’s 11th Infantry Division launched Exercise Orion’s Taming, described as an interagency territorial-defense exercise involving civil-military disaster response and joint law enforcement.

We reject the use of civilian communities as combat training grounds and the concommitant imposition of military restrictions on people who have no say in these operations, nor benefit from these. These exercises are harmful to the civilian population: artillery fire and airstrikes threaten homes, farms, forests and fishing grounds, while unexploded ordnance can continue to endanger residents long after the guns fall silent.

These live-fire exercises blatantly violate international humanitarian laws requiring parties to protect civilian lives and property.

We stand with the fishing and farming communities harmed by these exercises. Their safety, livelihoods and rights must not be sacrificed for saber-rattling and military spectacles.

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