‘Now the Hard Stuff’--After Euphoria, Big Problems Remain

“Euphoria is now,” a senior White House aide said quietly Tuesday amid Washington’s flood of self-congratulation over the peaceful fall of Ferdinand E. Marcos. “The rest comes later.”

Long before the first signs of the popular uprising that toppled Marcos, U.S. officials warned that the Philippines faced three crises at once--political, economic and military. Officials and scholars said Tuesday that Marcos’ replacement by Corazon Aquino solves only the political problem--if that.

The Philippine economy is still in disastrous condition, facing a third successive year of depression. The army, splintered into pro-Marcos and pro-Aquino factions, still must tame the Communist insurgency of the New People’s Army.

Network of Control

And even the political future remains uncertain. Marcos placed his henchmen in positions of control throughout the country’s 7,107 islands, and some could still resist the Aquino government.

Also, a potential conflict looms between Aquino and the United States over the future of two giant American military bases in the Philippines, which Aquino has suggested she may seek to renegotiate or close after the current pact governing their use expires in 1991.

“Now the hard stuff comes,” said Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.). “Marcos is gone. Now what do we do?”

Reagan Administration officials say they believe that the United States bears a responsibility for helping Aquino solve her country’s problems, for the same reason the Administration played a role in helping to ease Marcos out: The United States needs a stable Philippines as a military and political ally in Asia.

To help the Philippines regain its health, they say, the Administration will need to provide greatly increased economic and military aid--and is already considering how to package it.

‘Cooperate and Assist’

“The United States stands ready to cooperate and assist the Philippines as the government of President Aquino engages the problems of economic development and national security,” Secretary of State George P. Shultz said in his announcement of U.S. recognition of the new government.

The Aquino government, dominated by American-educated technocrats, has already signaled its desire for help. “We would expect greater assistance on the part of the United States, now that democracy has been re-established,” the new vice president and prime minister, Salvador Laurel, said Tuesday.

White House special envoy Philip C. Habib, who originally was being sent back to Manila to assist amid the dangerous showdown between Marcos and Aquino, has found his mission changed--to one of assessing the new regime’s aid needs. “He’ll probably come back with a shopping list,” Dole said.

Congress, which has spent much of the last two years fighting Administration requests for increased aid to Marcos, is in a mood to support aid for Aquino with enthusiasm.

“There should be a substantial increase in the level of American assistance,” said Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), a leading opponent of Marcos. “It would be penny-wise and pound-foolish, even in this era of Gramm-Rudman (the budget-balancing law), for us not to provide it.”

Not Carte Blanche

But voices of caution were heard as well. Dole warned: “We need to know what their positions are before we start writing checks. It’s a two-way street.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said that the Philippine economic situation may be even grimmer than already believed. “After you have an honest audit of the (Philippine government) books,” he said, “it’s likely to be a lot tougher than all of us have thought.”

And the White House aide said: “Keep your fingers crossed.” Citing a host of fallen leaders from the Shah of Iran to Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza, he said, “I haven’t seen one of these things turn out right in my lifetime.”

Pentagon officials have long discussed sending U.S. advisers to the Philippines to help the army meet the challenge of the New People’s Army guerrilla force. But U.S. officials noted that the Filipinos--including Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, Aquino’s military chief of staff--have been cool to the idea in the past.

And, despite some hints to the contrary, U.S. officials said, they are confident that Aquino will honor the current agreement allowing the United States to use Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base in the Philippines, the two largest American military facilities abroad and longtime keys to U.S. interest in the country.

Confidence on Bases

Shultz told reporters that he expects Aquino to agree to renew the bases agreement after it expires in 1991. “She has supported the presence of the bases and, insofar as I know on the basis of things that she has said directly to us, she has no question in her mind about the fact that we are there properly,” he said.

As 1991 approaches, Shultz said, “there will be a negotiation about the terms under which we will stay--assuming we stay, which I assume we will.”

But other officials said they are not so certain. During her presidential campaign, Aquino said she might seek to close the bases when the pact expires, although she later reversed that position when it prompted an outcry from Washington and from some of her own supporters.

And some U.S. officials worry that Aquino’s backers include elements of the non-Communist left who have blamed the United States for keeping Marcos in power for 20 years simply to preserve the bases. “We still don’t know what she really wants on that, how she’ll act once she’s in office,” one official said.

One reason for the Administration’s interest in increasing aid to Aquino was to bring home to her the Philippines’ lasting interest in a close relationship with the United States--including the bases.

Pacific Sea Lanes

The bases allow the United States to extend its military power into the western Pacific and Asia, protecting sea lanes that supply both Japan and the Pacific Coast. The Administration estimates that it would cost $5 billion to $8 billion to relocate the facilities and says the United States would wind up with facilities that are less strategically located.

Some analysts warned that a too-cozy U.S. relationship with the Aquino government would not be helpful. “The one thing the U.S. has to do is . . . not to try to be the tutor to the little brown brother--to stand back and let them do it themselves,” said William H. Sullivan, a former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines.

Lela Noble, a professor at San Jose State University, cautioned: “If we are too intrusive right now, we are going to undermine a government that should not be too identified with the United States.”

But most said that American standing in the Philippines probably improved greatly through the Administration’s last-minute decision to urge Marcos to go--in contrast to its earlier willingness to help him stay in power.

Fortuitous Shift

William Bundy, assistant secretary of state for Asia under President Lyndon B. Johnson, said that Reagan’s initial reaction to the Philippines’ Feb. 7 election, which Marcos claimed to have won, was “very unfortunate, but . . . he recovered. I think we come out smelling like a rose--or at least well enough that banners (in Manila) saying ‘U.S.-Marcos Dictatorship’ are going to be put away.”

And Bundy called the position on Marcos of the Soviet Union and its Communist Bloc allies “marvelous.” Those nations congratulated him on his election victory and announced that their ambassadors would attend his inauguration.

“That was one of those manna-from-heaven things. . . . If we’d had a mole running Soviet policy in the Philippines, we couldn’t have done better,” Bundy said.