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PRES. CORAZON C. AQUINO TOLD U.S. TROOPS TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY
U.S. Military Told To Leave Philippines
An article from CQ Almanac 1991
http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal91-1111026
Document Outline
A series of international and domestic events — ranging from a natural disaster to the breakup of the Soviet Union — turned 1991 into a turning point for relations between the United States and the Philippines. The culmination came Dec. 27, when the government of President Corazon C. Aquino told U.S. troops to leave the country.
Document Citation
“U.S. Military Told To Leave Philippines.” In CQ Almanac 1991, 47th ed., 433-34. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1992.
The decision signaled the end of the vast U.S. military presence in the area, a presence that dated back to 1898 when control of the islands was wrested from the Spahish. The Philippines gained independence from the United States in 1946, although the bases continued to play a principal role for U.S. armed forces in the Pacific theater for decades afterward.
In negotiations with the United States throughout 1991, Philippine officials insisted on $825 million in annual U.S. compensation — half in cash and half in trade and other concessions — in return for a seven-year agreement to continue operation of the military bases. U.S. negotiators said they wanted a 10-year pact tied to $360 million in annual aid.
The talks were disrupted by a volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in early June that nearly destroyed Clark Air Base and damaged the Subic Bay Naval Station. But negotiators finally settled on treaty language that would have provided a 10-year lease for the Subic Bay naval base and $203 million in annual aid for the duration. The operating lease for the naval base expired in September 1991.
But lawmakers in both countries were unhappy with the agreement.
A powerful contingent of Philippine nationalists argued against the base treaty, saying that the presence of the U.S. military amounted to a colonial dominance and an intrusion on Philippine sovereignty. On Sept. 16, the 23-member Philippine Senate voted to reject the base treaty.
U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, were frustrated by the persistent requests from the Philippines for infusions of aid, especially as a prerequisite for continued U.S. military presence there.
Members of Congress were questioning the strategic importance of the military bases, given the diminished Cold War atmosphere that was accompanying the breakup of the Soviet Union.
There was also reluctance to pay the Philippines billions of dollars to keep open bases overseas when declining defense budgets were forcing the closing of domestic bases in congressional districts across the country. (Base closings, p. 427)
“This has the Filipinos competing in the U.S. Congress with the Alabama National Guard,” said Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa. “Everyone in Congress is sympathetic to
the Philippines. On the other hand when the tough choices have to be made, the handwriting is on the wall.”
Other lawmakers, such as House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said the Philippine rejection of the treaty could free money that could be redirected as foreign aid in places such as the former Soviet republics.
“Countries are lined up for the money that might be available,” said Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Volcano Mired Deal
The volcanic eruption in early June of the Philippines’ Mount Pinatubo, located 10 miles west of Clark Air Base and approximately 25 miles north of the Subic Bay naval base, dumped billions of tons of ash throughout the surrounding areas. The disaster forced the evacuation and subsequent closing of the Clark base and the curtailment of operations at Subic Bay.
Following the eruption, about 18,000 U.S. citizens were evacuated from the bases, which also employed more than 70,000 Filipinos. Many more islanders were uprooted from their homes as the volcano smothered large swaths of land with deep heavy ash.
Members of Congress who had been skeptical about the need to retain the bases and frustrated by Philippine resistance to the treaty were even more doubtful that the cost of repairing the bases would be worthwhile. U.S. officials in the Philippines were reported to have estimated that Clark’s repair bill would have approached $300 million and possibly more.
The future of the bases had been further clouded by geological reports that indicated that the volcano might remain intermittently active for as long as 25 years, potentially disrupting any costly repair of the two remaining U.S. bases. Four other bases had been returned to Philippine control during the year.
“What’s the point of spending a fortune to put it all back together, if it’s all going to come apart again?” asked Rep. Patricia Schroeder, D-Colo., the chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Installations and Facilities, and an outspoken critic of U.S. military spending abroad.
Strategic Considerations
While the volcano sealed the fate of the Clark base, U.S. lawmakers and the Bush administration were careful to clarify that they wanted to maintain a strategic relationship with the Philippines, and especially to continue to lease the base at Subic Bay. Abandonment of the bases was not the expressed desire of the administration, either before or immediately following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.
“All things being equal, we would very much like to stay at both Clark and Subic,” Pete Williams, the spokesman for the Pentagon, had said on June 25.
But others held different views. A number of experts, including a handful in the Pentagon, had professed the view even prior to the volcano that operations performed at Clark and Subic Bay could be undertaken elsewhere, such as in Guam, Okinawa, Singapore and Hawaii, and that such a move would make sense, given the undercurrent of resentment of the U.S. presence in the Philippines.
Most agreed, however, that the massive, 60,000-acre Subic Bay facility held a unique and highly valued position with the U.S. Navy, providing it a deepwater port in a strategic location that could accommodate almost every maintenance, repair and supply need of the Pacific fleet.
According to a published report, U.S. officials tried to salvage the Subic Bay lease late in the year by proposing a three-year phased withdrawal from the Philippines, in the hope that the lease agreement might be revived and extended following election of a new Philippine government the following year. But that attempt also foundered, apparently over U.S. reluctance to agree to a firm schedule for removal of troops and equipment under Philippine direction.
Philippine President Aquino, who had strongly supported renewal of the lease agreement, also floated a proposal that a national referendum be held to save the bases. But in the face of widespread political opposition she backed away from
that proposal and later expressed more interest in the U.S. plan for a phased withdrawal.
When all efforts failed, Aquino ordered U.S. troops out of the naval port by the end of 1992.
Defense Department officials had told Congress earlier that if the base were closed, the United States would not seek a new naval base in Asia.
“New bases are neither fiscally feasible nor in keeping with the security relationships we have with our friends in the region,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Carl W. Ford Jr. told the House Foreign Affairs Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee on Sept. 25. “Functions and missions would be dispersed among existing facilities in the region and in the U.S.”
Document Citation
“U.S. Military Told To Leave Philippines.” In CQ Almanac 1991, 47th ed., 433-34. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1992. http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal91-1111026 .
Document ID: cqal91-1111026
Document URL: http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal91-1111026
