Aquino Agrees to Talks on Future of Bases : 2,000 Anti-Quayle Protesters Routed

Police hurled tear gas today to disperse 2,000 leftists demonstrating against Vice President Dan Quayle and American military bases here. President Corazon Aquino accepted a U.S. offer to discuss the bases’ future.

Quayle called the ambush-slayings of two American civilians on Tuesday “cowardly murders” and said a majority of Filipinos want the bases to remain.

“Let me be direct: terrorists will not drive Americans from the Philippines,” he told U.S. troops and dependents at Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay naval base, the largest of the six American installations here.

Police fired tear gas after demonstrators refused to end an anti-base rally near the presidential palace. Riot police also drove back hundreds of others who tried to march to the main gate at Clark during Quayle’s appearance.

Police arrested 157 people for joining anti-Quayle rallies in the capital.

Opposition to the bases is increasing among Filipinos, who see the facilities as an infringement on national sovereignty.

Quayle met for about an hour with Aquino and gave her a letter from President Bush suggesting talks begin in December on allowing the bases to remain after their lease expires in September, 1991. An aide said she accepted.

Aquino’s executive secretary, Catalino Macaraig, said the government has agreed to the talks and would give Quayle formal notice before he leaves Thursday for Malaysia.