Restoration of Site Urged : Shultz Visits Corregidor, Recalls Days of ‘Our War’

For Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a former Marine officer, and his one-time Army nurse wife, Helena, World War II was “our war.”

So it was something of a sentimental journey for George and Helena Shultz on Monday when they visited this island in Manila Bay where U.S. and Filipino forces made their last stand before the Philippines fell to Japan in 1942 and where Allied troops again raised the Stars and Stripes on March 2, 1945.

But time has not been kind to Corregidor. The ruins of the island’s military barracks have been overrun by jungle growth. Its fortified tunnels, which once housed Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s headquarters and a full hospital, are now in disrepair.

Worst of all, from Shultz’s standpoint, the once impressive Pacific war memorial--a monument to all of the battles of the war against Imperial Japan--has the run-down look of an abandoned cemetery. Paint is flaking off the main structure, and there are cracks in the marble facing.

Shultz said he will urge the U.S. government to help restore the monument and the historical area of the island. He estimated that it would cost an estimated $250,000 to restore the memorial and another $100,000 a year to keep it repaired and to keep the jungle at bay.

The Philippine Ministry of Tourism has far grander plans in mind. Shultz and his party were shown plans for a project, costing between $75 million and $100 million, to turn Corregidor into a tourist attraction with the memorial and the ruins of the barracks at one end and a Disney World-like resort at the other.

With the Philippine government facing such severe fiscal problems that it cannot even afford to maintain the memorial, the ministry’s plans seem to be wildly unrealistic. Tourism to Corregidor has come almost to a total halt.

A few years ago, as many as 100 tourists a day visited the island. But the company that operated the boats was run by a crony of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The new government of President Corazon Aquino canceled the operator’s permit, and no one took his place.

Many of the tourists who used to visit the island were Japanese, even though the monument commemorates Japan’s defeat.

The only way a tourist can visit Corregidor today is by a private boat or aircraft. Shultz made the trip on a 246-foot yacht called Ang Pangulo--meaning the president in the Tagalog language--which used to belong to Marcos. Aquino at first vowed to sell the ship but later decided the government should keep it, although she seldom uses it.

Dressed in a blue and white flowered sports shirt, blue, green and red plaid slacks and white tennis shoes, Shultz listened avidly while Jim Black, a longtime student of Corregidor lore, showed him around the island.

Black, who was born on Corregidor in 1928, has been studying the island since the end of the war. Black supplied most of the artifacts in the small museum near the memorial.

As a Marine, Shultz fought in the Pacific, including the bloody battle in the Palau Island chain. Helena Shultz served as a nurse in the Philippines after MacArthur’s forces returned there.

Shultz was in the Philippines for talks today with Aquino and other government officials. A senior State Department official said the purpose of the trip is to “show our support” for the Aquino government.

Shultz leaves the Philippines on Wednesday for Singapore, where he will attend the annual meeting of the foreign ministers of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations.