Senate in Bitter Fight Over $200-Million Philippine Aid Package

The Senate, whose members often claim credit for helping to install Corazon Aquino as president of the Philippines, is caught in a bitter battle over a $200-million Philippine aid package that was approved by the House last week shortly after Aquino delivered an address to Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has decreed that the aid package--which he characterized as a “$200-million honorarium” for Aquino--violates budget constraints already set by Congress. In addition, Dole questions why the United States should give more aid to the Philippines at a time when the future of its two military bases there is uncertain.

Senate Democratic leaders, meanwhile, are demanding Senate approval of the aid and pledging that, if necessary, they will offer a proposal to take the money from a recently passed $300-million aid package for Central America that includes assistance for the Nicaraguan rebels.

In a harshly worded statement issued Thursday, Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) said that “it demeans us” to describe the Philippine aid as an honorarium for Aquino. “I cannot for the life of me see how we can justify assisting democratic forces in Central America while turning our back on a democratic government in the Philippines,” he added.

Seeking to resolve the dispute, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is proposing instead that the money for the Philippines be drawn from the massive Pentagon budget. So far, however, his proposal has failed to satisfy opponents of the aid package.

The Philippines aid was approved in the House by a 203-197 vote last week only a few hours after Aquino made her emotional speech to a joint session of Congress.

The legislation is particularly important to a number of senators such as Lugar who played a key role in the transition of power in the Philippines early this year. Lugar led an official U.S. observer delegation that monitored the presidential election and declared it fraudulent, and Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.) is credited with persuading former President Ferdinand E. Marcos to step down in the face of a military and civilian rebellion.

“The Senate played a remarkable and responsible role as events unfolded in the Philippine peaceful revolution last spring,” Senate Minority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said Thursday. “ . . . This body inspired the empowering of forces of democracy behind her. Are we now to give those same forces the brush-off?”

Byrd vowed to offer the aid package as an amendment to an omnibus spending bill that will be passed by Congress before it adjourns in October. He said he would fund the aid program by “redirecting” $200 million of the $300 million approved earlier as aid for Central American nations--money that he argued was only intended as “bribery” to silence their criticism of U.S. assistance to the Nicaraguan rebels, known as contras.

Although $100 million in contra aid has been approved by both the House and Senate, it has not yet been passed finally by Congress and is expected to be part of the omnibus spending bill.

Dole argues against the Philippines aid not only because it violates congressional limits on spending but also because members of a constitutional commission appointed by Aquino have adopted a proposal that leaves it unclear whether U.S. leases for Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base in the Philippines will be extended when they come up for renewal in 1991.