Filipinos Kill 2 Americans as Quayle Arrives

Two American civilians working for a U.S. Air Force communications facility north of Manila were ambushed and killed by gunmen Tuesday, hours before Vice President Dan Quayle arrived amid anti-American demonstrations in this increasingly tense capital city.

Although no group immediately claimed responsibility, U.S. and Philippine officials said the ambush appeared to be the work of the Communist New People’s Army, which has killed four Americans here in the last two years.

U.S. officials confirmed that they had received threats from the NPA that Americans would be attacked if Quayle came to Manila.

Demonstrators Chant

About 200 demonstrators chanted “Yankee Go Home” and burned a large American flag as Quayle’s motorcade sped away from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, where he arrived at 7:30 p.m. The protesters demanded an end to U.S. military bases in the Philippines.

Security officials were bracing for large demonstrations and possible violence today as Quayle begins the formal part of his 40-hour visit to the Philippines with a call on President Corazon Aquino at Malacanang Palace.

Quayle is expected to give Aquino a letter from President Bush formally asking for the opening of negotiations on the future of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, America’s largest overseas military installations, as well as four smaller facilities. U.S. officials said the letter proposes no specific terms.

The bases issue is increasingly divisive here. The Pentagon considers them vital to protecting Pacific sea lanes, but many Philippine leaders regard them as a reminder of the nation’s colonial ties and an affront to national sovereignty.

The current bases agreement expires in September, 1991. Any new agreement must be ratified by the 23-member Philippine Senate, where opposition to the bases is strong. Other officials have called for phasing out the bases in five to 10 years.

Dead Americans Identified

The two Americans killed Tuesday were identified as William H. Thompson, 45, and Donald G. Buchner, 44. Officials said both had retired from the Air Force and were technicians for Ford Aerospace and Communications Corp., a Pentagon contractor at Camp O’Donnell, about 60 miles north of Manila.

Officials said Camp O’Donnell is an Air Force communications facility with 135 employees. They help operate an electronic warfare and bombing range at Clark’s sprawling Crowe Valley training facility.

In Washington, a State Department spokesman called the killings “senseless and cowardly.”

Susan M. Pearce, a vice president at the headquarters of Ford Aerospace Corp. in Newport Beach, said the company has “maintained good relations with the local Philippine community” and “there is no apparent motive for this attack.”

The two victims, both married with children, were among 85 Ford Aerospace workers at Camp O’Donnell, Pearce said. She added that there has never been “a prior incident of this kind involving our personnel.”

Air Force Maj. Wayne Crist, a spokesman at Clark, said early today that military personnel and Defense Department employees in the Philippines “are being advised to avoid non-essential travel between facilities until further notice.” The U.S. military television network later announced that Camp O’Donnell personnel should not report for work today.

Nearly 40,000 U.S. troops, military dependents and civilian employees are stationed at the two bases, which employ 68,000 Filipinos.

A police spokesman said the two Americans were ambushed at 4:40 p.m. Tuesday about 12 miles north of Clark Air Base on a rural highway that connects Camp O’Donnell with the town of Capas in Tarlac province.

The Capas police chief, Lt. Pepito Pimentel, said Thompson was driving a Toyota Corolla, with Buchner beside him, when a large truck suddenly blocked the road. Pimentel said six men armed with M-16 and M-14 rifles opened fire on the Americans, riddling them with bullets.

69 Spent Cartridges Found

“We found 69 spent cartridges at the ambush site,” Pimentel said.

The bodies were taken to Clark by ambulance.

“I think there’s no doubt it’s the NPA,” a military officer said early today. He speculated that the killers were part of the Central Luzon Regional Commission, an New People’s Army guerrilla group that killed two U.S. Air Force enlisted men and an American civilian outside Clark on Oct. 28, 1987.

Five months ago, on April 21, U.S. Army Col. James (Nick) Rowe, a counterinsurgency expert, was ambushed and killed in the Manila suburb of Quezon City as he was being driven to his office at the U.S. Joint Military Assistance Group.

The NPA said later that it had killed Rowe, 51, a decorated Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, because of his involvement in the Philippine government’s “total war” against the rebels.

Two weeks earlier, guerrillas blew up a communications facility operated by the U.S. Air Force and Navy and the Philippine military near Baguio in northern Luzon. No one was injured.

Tuesday’s ambush came after a week of arrests and demonstrations outside the U.S. Embassy, a series of shootings and grenade attacks in Manila and a barrage of anti-American press reports over alleged meddling in Philippine affairs.

Early Tuesday, unidentified gunmen shot and killed a staff officer of President Aquino’s security command about a mile from the presidential palace. He was the fourth member of the presidential guard killed in the last four months. Military officials have blamed urban Communist guerrillas--known as “sparrows” for their swiftness--for the attacks.

Later Tuesday, 10 students were arrested after demonstrators protesting Quayle’s visit and rising tuition fees tossed a small homemade bomb at riot police on a street across the Pasig River from the presidential palace. Six police officers were injured.

Manila police and military units have been on the alert for the past two weeks, since three grenade explosions killed two people and wounded 16 others. Although the attacks remain unsolved, the blasts fueled new coup rumors and increased tension.

As Quayle arrived in Manila, leftist student groups chanted “Bases out!” and “Quayle go home!” from behind lines of helmeted riot police at the airport entrance. Three youths wearing red bandannas over their faces set fire to a tattered U.S. flag hung on a pole. Quayle and his wife, Marilyn, were probably unable to see the blaze as their car sped by.

“We are against the visit of Vice President Quayle because it is symbolic of further intervention by the U.S. in the Philippines,” said Noel Medina, 25, an organizer of a protest group called Youth for Democracy and Nationalism. “We are against the presence of U.S. bases in our country.”

Quayle will visit the Clark and Subic bases this afternoon after meeting congressional leaders and placing a wreath at the U.S. World War II cemetery in Manila.

He arrived from Tokyo on a 12-day, four-nation Pacific tour that began in South Korea and will end Friday in Malaysia.

Times staff writer Jube Shiver Jr., in Los Angeles, contributed to this report.