Rights group slams plans to build US military munitions factory in PH
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS STATEMENT
28 March 2026
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
Rights group slams plans to build US military munitions factory in PH
KARAPATAN deplores the planned construction of a munitions factory in the Philippines that will load, assemble and package 30-millimeter cannon rounds for the US military and its allied countries.
Through its Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience involving 16 countries in the Asia-Pacific region, the US plans to outsource the manufacture of solid rocket motors (used to power guided missiles) as well as drones and ammunition for use in its wars of aggression. In the Philippines, Subic and Bataan are being eyed as potential sites for the ammunition facility.
The construction of a US munitions factory in the Philippines makes the Marcos Jr. regime complicit in the Trump regime’s criminal attacks against states that have shown independence against imperialist impositions. It will also make the country a target of retaliatory or preemptive strikes by the US’ enemies, and irresponsibly drag the Filipino people into a conflict not of their own making.
Worse, the munitions to be manufactured in the Philippines will likely be used also against Filipinos in the Marcos Jr. regime’s brutal counter-insurgency war. The Philippine military has been known to use 30-mm cannon-armed platforms (typically on helicopters, combat planes and armored vehicles) in operations against “insurgent” and “terrorist” targets. These very munitions have already been utilized in artillery attacks targeting upland communities, killing civilians and livestock, damaging the local population’s production areas and disrupting the people’s economic activities.
There can be no redeeming value in this venture that props up US aggression and war-mongering against sovereign nations, aims to make Filipinos cannon-fodder in a potential US-instigated conflict in the Asia-Pacific and creates munitions used to kill fellow Filipinos.
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. It was established in 1995.