No Reason to Ruin a Friendship

The old order in U.S.-Philippine relations is passing. As negotiations resume on extending American military- base leases in the Philippines, President Corazon Aquino says the time has come to talk about an “orderly withdrawal” of U.S. forces from her country. Not long ago such a comment would have sent tremors of alarm rippling through Washington. No longer. In a changing world, a major redefinition of the long, bittersweet relationship between the United States and the Philippines is under way.

Two factors dictate this reassessment. First is the ongoing shrinking of Soviet military power in the western Pacific, which greatly reduces the U.S. need to retain such enormous facilities as Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. Second, a swelling mood of Filipino nationalism makes it increasingly less likely that Aquino and other political moderates can for very long continue to support a major U.S. military presence in their country.

The probable phase-out of the U.S. bases doesn’t presage a withdrawal of military power back to Guam or Pearl Harbor. Alternative sites in the region undoubtedly can be found--Singapore is a possible naval site--meaning that the military presence that has existed since the United States ended Spain’s centuries of colonial rule over the Philippines in 1898 will go on.

The bases, of course, have also benefited the Philippines, providing tens of thousands of jobs and channeling billions of dollars into the local economy. But now sovereignty issues that before were raised only halfheartedly are being ever more loudly expressed, and frictions are growing.

The United States has long said that it won’t seek to retain bases where it is not wanted. That is the honorable position to adopt and the sensible and sensitive one to be guided by in the current talks. A phase-out of the bases seems inevitable. The challenge is to reach agreement on a timetable and procedures for satisfactorily achieving that in a calm and dignified atmosphere. The current emotionalism of the bases’ issue shouldn’t be allowed to sour bilateral cooperation in years to come, whatever the future of the American military presence on Philippine soil may be.