Most of Medical Aid Reagan Promised Aquino for Military Is Still Not Delivered

The U.S. government has failed to deliver millions of dollars in critically needed medical aid that President Reagan promised the Philippine armed forces when he met with President Corazon Aquino last September.

As of Tuesday, less than a third of the $10 million in medical aid that the Reagan Administration pledged as an emergency military appropriation had actually arrived in Manila, according to records at Philippine military headquarters.

And the $2.75 million in aid the United States has delivered includes none of the medicines, surgical instruments and hospital supplies the Philippine military requested.

Instead, the United States sent dozens of parkas designed for use by ski troops, although Philippine soldiers operate in tropical jungles where the temperature is usually in the 90s.

Boxes labeled tuberculosis capsules (tuberculosis is a leading killer among Filipinos, and soldiers are particularly at risk) were found to contain Anacin tablets. And there were hundreds of used hospital cots, pillows and heavy woolen blankets.

Used Jeeps Sent

On Dec. 26, three months after the White House announced the emergency medical aid package, a U.S. Air Force C-5 transport plane delivered 40 ambulance jeeps, listed at a value of $800,000, but at least half of them were either used or rebuilt.

On Tuesday, a senior official of the Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group in Manila, which is responsible for distributing U.S. military aid to the Philippines, confirmed the inventory reports obtained by The Times, including the delivery of the parkas. But the official said the U.S. Defense Department had no choice.

The White House, he said, authorized the $10-million package under a section of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 that requires that such supplies come from U.S. military stocks.

“There is no new money involved,” the official said, “and unfortunately there just aren’t any medicines or the other things they (the Philippine military) need on the shelf.”

The official said “a worldwide search” of U.S. military facilities is under way to locate some of the needed items. He added that the parkas have been returned to Washington, “hopefully in exchange for something more practical.”

U.S. Enthusiasm Doubted

The $10-million grant is just a small part of the hundreds of millions of dollars in aid the United States sends the Philippines every year, but the mess now surrounding it is symbolic of a growing fear among many Filipino civilian and military leaders that the Reagan Administration is not as enthusiastic about the Philippines as President Reagan said it was when he and Aquino met last September.

“We are thankful for what the United States is giving us,” a senior Philippine military officer said at general headquarters. “Without the U.S. aid, we would be hurting even more. But it would make much more of a point if the things they have been talking about were delivered fast enough to make a difference. It all tends to make us question the United States government’s true motives here in the Philippines.”

The delay in U.S. military aid comes at a time when the Philippine armed forces are taking one of their most severe beatings since the start of the Communist uprising 18 years ago.

In just the past two weeks, as the insurgents have escalated their attacks on the military, more than 25 soldiers have been killed in action, many of them because the government lacks adequate field hospitals and medical supplies.

Aquino specifically appealed for such aid in her personal meetings last September with President Reagan and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

For the most part, those discussions centered on Aquino’s approach to solving the insurgency, which has claimed tens of thousands of Philippine lives and, according to military experts, threatens America’s two big military bases here.

Reagan personally announced the U.S. government’s $10-million military medical aid package as a sign of his support for Aquino. Afterward, an Administration official told reporters that the $10 million was an important symbol of the Reagan Administration’s support for Aquino’s counterinsurgency strategy.

In recent weeks the United States’ failure to deliver more than two-thirds of the promised supplies has caused anger and confusion among Philippine military commanders, who are beginning to question the sincerity of the Reagan Administration.

“Are they really trying to help us, or are they trying to destabilize us even more than we are so they can justify coming in and helping us out?” asked a general who asked not to be further identified. “It’s a question of heightening expectations and then failing to deliver. And that is, after all, the biggest cause of the insurgency--the government’s failure to deliver what it promises. Don’t talk of giving us something until after you give it. If you promise it, and then it never comes, it does far more harm than if you had never said anything in the first place.”

Other Promises Questioned

Pro-government politicians in Manila are beginning to question other U.S. promises. The Philippines is guaranteed $900 million over a five-year period under a 1983 agreement that permits the United States to maintain its bases here.

In a U.S. government-sponsored satellite broadcast on Manila television Tuesday morning, political leader Raul Manglapus asked a U.S. official what had happened to a $200-million supplemental aid appropriation approved by the House moments after Aquino addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. official explained that the money still has not been released by Congress.

The appropriation was heavily publicized in Manila, in large part because the U.S. government financed live satellite coverage of Aquino’s 10-day American trip to television audiences here. The aid package then became mired down in the Senate, which decided to include the $200 million in 1987 appropriations for the Philippines. The Senate action received little or no publicity in Manila.