Aquino to Give U.S. 3 Years to Quit Subic Bay

In a compromise move, Philippine President Corazon Aquino announced Wednesday that her government will give the United States three years, rent free, to withdraw military forces from Subic Bay, America’s largest naval base in Asia.

U.S. Embassy officials here were guarded in response, saying the offer--far less time than they had hoped--will be studied in Washington. A 1994 pullout would end nearly a century-old American military presence here.

In a rare news conference, Aquino said her government has abandoned plans to hold a controversial national referendum that she had called to support a 10-year lease extension. The extension, agreed to by Philippine and U.S. negotiators, was rejected by the Philippine Senate on Sept. 16.

Instead, Aquino told reporters that she will “negotiate and execute” an executive agreement with Washington “for the withdrawal of the United States military forces within a period not exceeding three years.”

In Washington, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney called the decision “a tragedy for the Philippines.”

“If the three years is their decision for withdrawal, then we’re willing to conduct ourselves accordingly,” he told reporters after meeting with House Republicans.

Cheney said he had not yet seen a formal communication from the Philippines, only news reports.

In Manila, Aquino said 15 of the 23 members of the Philippine Senate had pledged to support the plan, including four members who voted last month against the 10-year extension. Under that arrangement, which Manila called a treaty, the United States was to pay $203 million a year for use of the huge Subic port facility and the adjacent Cubi Point Air Base.

In an apparent bid to retain goodwill with Washington, Aquino said compensation for the new offer was “never discussed.” But she added that “we will be very grateful and will accept any and all assistance” toward the reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure, agriculture and private property destroyed in the June 15 volcanic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo.

Her spokesman, Horacio Paredes, said later that the United States would not be asked for compensation. “It’s not going to be part of the agreement,” he said. “So whatever compensation there will be, will be whatever the United States wants to give. If the United States doesn’t feel like giving, it’s just as well. No problem for us.”

Officials say that almost 1.2 million people lost their homes, shops, farms or jobs because of the Pinatubo eruption, apparently the largest in the world in this century. Deadly mud flows from the volcano continue to ravage central Luzon, and epidemics and malnutrition have claimed 428 lives in overcrowded government-run evacuation camps.

Pinatubo also left Clark Air Base, the other major U.S. installation here, so crippled from fallen ash that the Pentagon will abandon it in December. Damage was less at Subic, the giant port on the South China Sea that is the largest U.S. ship repair and supply depot in Asia. About 8,000 sailors and Marines are stationed at Subic, which services the 7th Fleet.

Frank Drilon, Aquino’s executive secretary, said U.S. Ambassador Frank Wisner has assured the government that Washington “will accept the decision of a sovereign state.” He said committees from the two governments will meet soon to begin planning the base phase-out.

But U.S. Embassy officials declined to confirm that. “At the moment we’re just taking a look at it,” said one diplomat. “There’s still a lot of unanswered questions.”

Richard Gordon, mayor of Olongapo, a bustling city of 350,000 adjacent to and largely dependent on Subic, immediately denounced Aquino’s plan, saying it provides insufficient time to implement still-vague conversion plans for the sprawling base. Various government committees have proposed converting the U.S. base into a commercial shipyard or container port, or even a collection of pig farms, but little real planning has been done.

“They say this can be marketable in three years,” Gordon said. “That’s baloney. . . . If the base leaves, we’re, well, I don’t want to say because it’s an expletive.”

Aquino’s move appeared to be an attempt to defuse a political crisis at home and growing disarray in relations with Washington. Her government dragged out the bases negotiations for 14 months, unsure until the end whether it wanted the Americans to stay or to go. The ambivalence stems from the widespread view that the bases, despite their role as the nation’s second largest employer, are a legacy of America’s colonial era.

The subsequent rejection of a lease extension by the Senate was a severe setback for Aquino because it was her government’s only major foreign policy initiative. Since the vote, hard-liners in the Senate have demanded that the United States withdraw within one year.

Aquino said she seeks more time to aid thousands of Filipino ship workers at Subic, whose jobs are now threatened.

“I mean, it’s not as if the workers in Subic would just run to the senators and the senators will be giving them employment,” she said. “So this was my main responsibility.”