Download PDF of this full issue: v20n2.pdf (14.3 MB)

In The Philippines: U.S. Bases Serve U.S.

By John M. Miller and Stephen E. Shalom

U.S. jet fighters took to the skies of Manila as the superpower summiteers in Malta were discussing how to reduce military forces in Europe. Troop withdrawals from the Philippines, however, are the last thing on the Pentagon's mind. Even while the fighting raged in Manila, ABC's Pentagon correspondent reported that U.S. air assistance to the Aquino government would strengthen Washington's position in maintaining access to its huge military facilities in the Philippines, Clark Air Field and Subic Naval Base, but the U.S. role may backfire. Overt U.S. intervention has already inflamed nationalist sentiment.

Notwithstanding Bush's self-serving assertions that he had acted to preserve democracy, the U.S. moves to prop up President Corazon Aquino against the latest coup attempt had little to do with devotion to democracy and everything to do with supporting whichever side the U.S. believes is best able to promote its interests.

Over the years, the Pentagon has used its Philippine bases for projecting U.S. military power from Vietnam to the Persian Gulf. In order to secure these bases, the U.S. has consistently intervened in Philippine politics. In the mid-50's, for example, Washington undertook a covert operations against Claro M. Recto, a prominent opponent of the bases, going so far as to prepare a vial of poison to administer to him. By the late 60's, the call for removal of the bases had been picked up by a mass movement, and when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972 to crush this movement, he had the full backing of the U.S. as one U.S. official noted, it was better to deal with Marcos on the bases than with a nationalist Congress.

The agreement allowing the U.S. bases in the Philippines expires in 1991, and the U.S. effort to convince Filipinos to allow the bases to remain has been faltering. The always useful Soviet bogey lost much of its force when Gorbachev proposed that both superpowers withdraw their bases from Southeast Asia: with the new thinking in Soviet foreign policy, Filipinos were asking, as Senator Leticia Shahani put it, "Where's the threat?" Now, however, we can expect the U.S. to use the December events to try to justify the renewal of the bases agreement.

U.S. officials hope that their aid to Aquino during the coup attempt will clinch her backing for the U.S. bases and, more importantly, since Aquino's support for the bases has been quite probably for some time now, convince those who reject military dictatorship that U.S. bases are necessary to preserve civilian rule. But the U.S. commitment to Philippine democracy does not run very deep.

Throughout the Marcos years, the U.s. supported the dictator because he supported the U.S. bases. In the days just before Mracos fell, President Reagan, asked which was more important, the bases or Philippine democracy, replied that "One cannot minimize the importance of those bases." The U.S. government's last minute switch to Aquino came after policy makers concluded that Marcos's corruption and repression were fueling the radical left and only a Philippine government with some legitimacy could maintain stability and thus preserve the U.S. bases.

In the face of numerous coup attempts, the Aquino government has moved decisively to the right, adopting the political program of the armed forces and Washington as her own—purging the few progressives from her cabinet, maintaining and expanding vigilante forces, and taking a hard-line on the communist insurgency. Although the U.s. did not want the many early coups to succeed, it took full advantage of them to enhance its leverage on the Philippine government. The most recent coup attempt follows the same pattern.

U.S. support for Aquino has nothing to do with any commitment to the principles fo the People's Power revolution: Aquino has betrayed these long ago. Nor is U.S. backing for Aquino based on any commitment to democracy: the political system in the Philippines today is a system of elite, not popular rule. In any event, Washington has backed dictatorship in the Philippines and elsewhere wherever that was thought to further U.S. interests.

While once the Philippine arrived forces had accepted civilian supremacy, after 14 years of martial law they take for granted their right to rule. Moreover, the Philippine military has also grown accustomed to fighting other Filipinos; U.S. military advisers routinely accompany Philippine troops on counter-insurgency operations. And the U.S. endorsed a substantial role for the military in the new Aquino administration.

But, direct military rule in the Philippines is unlikely to further U.S. interests at this time. Aquino despite her growing unpopularity at home, is still well-liked in the U.S.; public opinion would demand and U.S. law require an immediate cutoff of aid to any regime installed by a coup d'etat, jeopardizing the Philippine counter-insurgency campaign.

If the U.S. supports "Philippine democracy" today, tomorrow, when, for example, the duty elected Senate refuses to ratify a new bases agreement, the U.S. may wel decide to back the next Ferdinand Marcos. Of course, the U.S. may be able to get what it wants simply by economic blackmail and CIA operations. In either case, democracy will suffer.

If there is to be real democracy in the Philippines, its government will have to become, at long last, responsive to the wishes and needs of the Philippine population. At present, the government can ignore the desperate plight of the majority of the people because it is dependent not on their support, but on the support of the military and the U.S. This sort of dependence can never yield democracy.