07/06/2026
We thank Bayan, the New Patriotic Alliance of the , for their statement of support for :
BAYAN: NO TO WAR AGAINST CUBA! END THE GENOCIDAL US BLOCKADE!
June 1, 2026
From the Treaty of Paris to Revolution and Sovereignty
Like the Philippines, Cuba emerged from the ruins of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, when a decaying Spanish empire surrendered colonized peoples to a rising US imperial power. However, as the Filipino people's anticolonial revolution faced violent US conquest and the imposition of a neocolonial order sustained by comprador elites and political dynasties, generations of Filipinos continued to resist through anti-imperialist, peasant, worker, Moro, and revolutionary movements that refused to capitulate. The victorious Cuban Revolution of 1959 is not a distant exception, but a living affirmation of what oppressed peoples continue to fight for.
Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the 26th of July Movement, and generations of revolutionaries, Cuba transformed itself from a neocolonial appendage of U.S. capital into a sovereign socialist nation committed to human dignity, social welfare, and international solidarity. Today, the Cuban Revolution remains a living rebuke to imperialism: proof that another social order is possible, one based on the well-being of the people rather than the profit and plunder of the elites.
Why does the United States punish Cuba?
The United States claims to defend “democracy” while subjecting Cuba to more than six decades of siege, sabotage, sanctions, destabilization, and economic warfare. The cruel and illegal blockade—now intensified into an energy embargo that Cuban leaders rightly describe as an act of war—seeks to subdue the Cuban people through starvation.
This punishment is not imposed because Cuba has failed. Cuba is punished precisely because it has demonstrated that, even under relentless attack, a poor and formerly dependent nation can prioritize human needs.
Cuba built a universal and free healthcare system, free education at all levels, scientific research, cultural development, food security systems, and social indicators that rival those of wealthy capitalist states. It eradicated illiteracy, drastically reduced infant mortality, increased life expectancy, and guaranteed unimaginable social rights for millions of people living under neoliberal capitalism.
Even amid an intensified blockade, Cuba developed its own COVID-19 vaccines, trained doctors, maintained universal public healthcare, and continued investing in renewable energy and social welfare, despite the shortages deliberately imposed by US aggression.
Cuba's Revolutionary Internationalism
Cuba never appropriated its achievements. It extended its solidarity wherever people were fighting against colonialism, racism, disease, and exploitation.
Cuba supported liberation struggles across Africa, including Angola, Guinea-Bissau, and Namibia, and contributed materially to the defeat of apartheid in southern Africa. It sent doctors—not bombs—to countries in need, from Algeria to West Africa during the Ebola outbreak, and from Latin America to Europe during the pandemic.
Its medical brigades have cared for millions of people in marginalized communities, neglected by profit-driven healthcare systems. Through the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), Cuba trained thousands of doctors from poor and marginalized communities around the world—including the United States itself—who returned to their country to serve the working class. Cuba provided literacy programs throughout the Global South and restored sight to millions through Operation Miracle.
While imperialism exports war, Cuba exports solidarity.
Fidel Castro and the Resistance of the Revolution
That Fidel Castro survived more than six hundred documented assassination plots and yet died of natural causes is a testament not only to his extraordinary leadership but also to the unwavering loyalty and vigilance of the Cuban people in defense of their Revolution. Today, even after Fidel's passing, imperialism continues its campaign of destabilization and historical erasure. The recent US decision to bring charges against former Cuban president and revolutionary leader Raúl Castro for the 1996 downing of aircraft linked to anti-Castro exile operations is not merely a legal maneuver but part of an information war aimed at discrediting a leader who helped preserve the socialist path during one of Cuba's most difficult transitions after Fidel's death. The accusations come amid a renewed US escalation against Cuba and serve as a warning against sovereign resistance.
This pattern is painfully familiar. In colonies and semi-colonies, leaders who dared to assert national sovereignty and resist imperial domination have been demonized, overthrown, assassinated, or criminalized: Patrice Lumumba, whose assassination occurred with documented Belgian involvement and long-standing evidence of CIA complicity; Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso killed in a coup long associated with reactionary and foreign interests hostile to his anti-imperialist program; Salvador Allende, overthrown in a US-backed coup; and Muammar Gaddafi, whose state was destroyed by NATO intervention.
Today, the brazen kidnapping and prosecution of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the United States reveals that imperial punishment against governments that refuse to submit remains in effect.
Yet Cuba resists. Despite hardship, shortages, blackouts, and intensified sanctions, the Cuban people continue to defend socialism with remarkable resilience, creativity, and collective sacrifice. Through massive participation, solidarity, and the revolutionary principle of the "War of the Entire People," Cuba has affirmed that sovereignty belongs to both governments and organized peoples willing to defend their future…
The Philippine State and the Costs of Neocolonial Domination
The Filipino people know all too well the devastating costs of neocolonialism.
…Many Filipinos aspire to the social guarantees for which Cuba fought: a society where healthcare and education are rights, not commodities; where children are not abandoned to destitution; where science serves the public good; where development is planned for people, not for foreign investors and oligarchs.
…Precisely because Cuba demonstrated what national sovereignty, popular participation, and people-centered development can achieve, it remains the target of relentless attack. And it is precisely for this reason that the progressive, democratic, and anti-imperialist forces of the Philippines continue to defend Cuba, both as an act of international solidarity and as an affirmation that another future is still possible.
Imperialist Warfare, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Indo-Pacific War Machine
The renewed aggression against Cuba is part of a broader imperial strategy.
While Washington reaffirms the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America—seeking to neutralize sovereign development projects and punish governments that refuse to submit—it simultaneously expands its war preparations in Asia under the artificial framework of the so-called “Indo-Pacific.”
…
Cuba is not alone.
The people of the Philippines know what it means to endure imperial domination, fascist violence, and elite rule. Therefore, we firmly support the Cuban people in their resistance to economic warfare, military threats, disinformation, and renewed aggression.
The movement for national liberation, democracy, and socialism in the Philippines recognizes Cuba not as an abstraction, but as living proof that oppressed peoples can defend their sovereignty and organize society around human needs.
We defend Cuba because defending Cuba means defending the possibility of a just future.
BAYAN calls on the Filipino people and the international community to:
Condemn all threats of US military aggression against Cuba;
Demand an immediate end to the genocidal economic and energy blockade;
Oppose the reaffirmation of the Monroe Doctrine and all forms of imperialist intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean;
Strengthen anti-imperialist solidarity among peoples resisting fascism, militarism, and imperial domination;
Support Cuba’s sovereign right to socialism, self-determination, and national development free from coercion and aggression.
No to war against Cuba!
