U.S.-Philippine Relations Turning Warmer in Post-Marcos Era

Every working day, a long line of Filipinos, many of them sporting New York Yankees T-shirts, Los Angeles Dodgers caps or standard-issue U.S. Army fatigues, snakes around the U.S. Embassy. They are all waiting for visas to the United States.

Last year alone, according to a U.S. Embassy fact sheet, 37,076 Filipinos emigrated permanently to the United States and 74,317 went as tourists. As of 1980, there were more than half a million Filipinos in the United States as permanent residents, and by the year 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau has concluded, Filipinos will make up the largest immigrant group in America.

Charges of Neocolonialism

Yet last month, when Secretary of State George P. Shultz arrived in Manila, about 100 demonstrators waving red flags and shouting anti-American slogans greeted his motorcade from the airport. Many carried signs denouncing “U.S. Imperialism” in the Philippines, demanding the dismantling of two U.S. military bases here and declaring, “Shultz Go Home.”

Manila’s newspapers that day displayed headlines criticizing the U.S. presence here. One called it neocolonialism. Another declared in large black type on the front page: “Shultz Arriving; U.S. Arm-twisting Seen.”

A State Department official who was asked about the status of U.S.-Philippine relations under the government of President Corazon Aquino pointed to the line of visa applicants and replied: “I think you have your answer right there. Forget all the leftist rhetoric. The fact is, you just don’t see any lines outside the Soviet Embassy.”

Still, as the demonstrators who heckled Shultz and the line outside the embassy make clear, there are two separate and powerful aspects of Philippine-American relations.

Four months after Aquino took power from a fleeing Ferdinand E. Marcos, officials in both governments agree that relations have not suffered in the least from the departure of a man some U.S. presidents considered to be the champion of American interests in Southeast Asia.

In fact, these officials said, Aquino is fast becoming an even closer friend of the Reagan Administration than Marcos, whose excesses and abuses during 20 years in power were often excused under an American policy that sometimes put strategic interests ahead of human rights.

And despite the unprecedented level of anti-Americanism here--on the left and on the extreme right--recent weeks have been dominated by rhetoric that reflects a growing friendship.

Last weekend, when elements loyal to Marcos took over a downtown Manila hotel in open revolt against the Aquino government, the State Department was quick to issue a statement strongly supporting the young Philippine regime, while denouncing efforts of those who would destabilize it.

And Shultz, who concluded his visit June 28, declared upon signing a document that handed over $200 million in base-compensation payments, “I am here to sign this agreement, but really to say how firmly we support the new government of President Aquino.”

Close Personal Relations

Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel went even further. He called the ceremony “an occasion for both nations to show to the world the close relations between our two countries.”

At the heart of the current relationship is the friendship between Shultz and President Aquino. Her claim to power was crystallized for the world only moments after Marcos’ flight, when Shultz said in Washington that Aquino was the duly elected president of the Philippines.

At a lunch on the terrace of the president’s private home--Aquino has entertained every other state guest at her offices in the palace--Shultz reportedly addressed her by her nickname, Cory, and she called him George.

The only other guests at the lunch were Aquino’s two closest advisers, her elder brother, Jose, and her information minister, Teodoro Locsin Jr., an assistant secretary of state from Washington and U.S. Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth. The ambassador played a key role in arranging for Marcos to be flown out of the country to exile in Hawaii.

U.S. Role Appreciated

Clearly, the American part in the uprising that propelled Aquino into the presidency forms the foundation for Aquino’s attitude toward the United States. But she has often said she spent “the best years of my life” while she was in exile in Boston in the early 1980s with her late husband, Benigno.

Shultz and President Reagan were careful to orchestrate their comments during the coup to make it clear to Marcos that the U.S. government no longer endorsed his regime. Finally, a Reagan friend, Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), told Marcos by phone that he should leave the presidential palace.

According to Aquino’s top advisers, she has been forced to keep her feelings about the United States largely to herself. Her government faces unprecedented pressure from liberal nationalists who supported her in the Feb. 7 election, from socialist-leaning members of her Cabinet and from right-wing Marcos loyalists still angry about the American role in the ouster of Marcos.

“Cory has been walking a tightrope,” a Cabinet minister said in an interview, asking not to be named. “But I can tell you this, it’s the hardened leftists she fears the most. It’s obvious that they’re mobilizing all their forces and their propaganda machine to force her hand on a variety of issues.”

Criticized by Communist

In recent speeches and interviews, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has been increasingly critical of the Aquino government. Although Aquino personally ordered his release from prison two days after she assumed power, Sison has chided her for aligning herself too closely with the United States and for packing her Cabinet with “rich oligarchs educated in the imperialist schools of America.”

Two issues have come to symbolize the mounting tension in Aquino’s government over relations with the United States--the 17-year rebellion by Communist insurgents and the two big U.S. bases north of Manila.

On the question of the bases, Aquino has carefully avoided taking a stand. She has said only that she wants “to keep my options open” when the agreement on the bases expires in 1991. But several members of her government have expressed strong opinions against the bases.

Civil rights lawyer Jose Diokno, a strong Aquino supporter who has been named to head a presidential commission investigating human rights abuses under Marcos, also serves as the secretary general of the Anti-Bases Coalition of the Philippines.

U.S. Interference Seen

“The U.S. bases not only pose further threats against the lives of the Filipino people, but constitute a danger to our sovereignty,” he said in a recent statement. “Nuclear-armed and -capable vessels are serviced at the bases, and, on the pretext of helping us out, the American government actually interferes in our affairs.”

The Anti-Bases Coalition, he said, “calls for the immediate dismantling of the U.S. bases, for this is one more in the string of American abuses against our nation.”

Sentiment against Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, which Pentagon analysts say are essential to American security interests in Asia, is also building among members of a presidential commission charged with drafting a new constitution. Several members of the commission have said they plan to propose the immediate withdrawal of the American presence and the banning of any future foreign military bases on Philippine soil.

Leftist groups have been even stronger in their criticism. Bagong Alyangsang Makabayan, a group made up largely of student activists, said in a leaflet distributed in Manila: “Foreign interests that go against the progress and benefit of the greater majority are still very much around. Foremost is the imperialist U.S., which is presently trying to strengthen and trying to retain its economic and military interests in the country. . . . Remove the bases now.”

Base Issue Soft-Pedaled

In an effort to ease the pressure on Aquino, U.S. officials accompanying Shultz here emphasized that the bases issue did not come up at any of Aquino’s meetings with Shultz.

“The bases issue,” a Cabinet minister confided, “is better left alone right now. It’s one thing we do not have to deal with, and for the sake of stability, it’s all better left unsaid at the moment.”

Nevertheless, Shultz told the press that he felt the bases are “secure.” And he reiterated the Reagan Administration position that the bases, which contribute $300 million a year to the cash-poor Philippine economy and employ 20,000 Filipinos in a country where unemployment and underemployment exceed 50%, are “good for the Philippines.”

What is of immediate concern to Aquino, though, is the Communist insurgency, an issue that touches on the American presence here if only because of the massive American military aid Washington has pumped into the Philippines’ counterinsurgency effort.

U.S. Monitors Situation

The Pentagon and the State Department monitor the situation in the Philippines perhaps more closely than any other conflict in the world, for the Communists have promised that if they win, their first act after taking over the government will be to demolish the bases.

Removal of the bases and the cutoff of all American military aid are among the rebels’ primary demands as they prepare for cease-fire negotiations. Aquino has said that her government will enter into negotiations “very soon” with leaders of the insurgency.

She has been more open on the subject of the insurgency than on the bases. She has said she will not accept a coalition government with the Communists, as they have requested on their list of demands. She has promised to return to the use of military force against the rebels if the talks fail or if the rebels violate any future cease-fire agreement. And she has told several of her Cabinet members in private that her release of all political prisoners after taking office was more a strategic move than a humanitarian one.

“She wanted to go to the negotiating table with clean hands,” said Locsin, the information minister. “The president has already shown her good faith. Now it’s their turn to show good faith. And if they don’t, President Aquino has said she is ready to tell the military, ‘OK, boys, go get ‘em.’ ”

Turning to Military

Aquino has also shown that she is willing to work even more closely with her military leaders, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, both of whom have taken an increasingly hard line against the rebels in recent weeks.

After her lunch with Shultz, Aquino summoned Enrile to her office for a detailed briefing on the insurgency. Enrile described the meeting as a show of unity in the government’s approach to ending the conflict.

Shultz, after meetings with Aquino, Enrile and Ramos, endorsed the government’s strategy.

An Asian diplomat, observing the subtle shifts in the Aquino government’s posture on the insurgency, told a reporter, “I think it will be most interesting to see how the rebel leaders react to all this hand-holding with the American leader.”

Clearly, though, the warmth surrounding Shultz’s visit did more to solidify U.S.-Philippine relations than to damage them.

Even before coming here, Shultz had made it clear that the Reagan Administration has abandoned Marcos and is firmly committed to Aquino.

“Marcos is not the story anymore,” Shultz told reporters. “He is the past.”