Twin Anchors for American Might

The two U.S. military facilities in the Philippines lie at the epicenter of both the western Pacific and the presidential campaign. To the Pentagon, their eventual fate is of critical importance. As Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage said last week, "Their location astride the vital Pacific sea-lanes, plus their unmatched facilities, makes them an unsurpassable combination."

Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base are the largest U.S. military installations in any foreign country. With 18,000 men and women on active duty, they manifest the determination of the U.S. to maintain its power in the economically fastest-growing region in the world. Militarily, they project U.S. might all the way to the Persian Gulf and safeguard the sea-lanes through which 80% of the West's strategic raw materials pass.

Under an agreement that expires in 1991, the U.S. contributes $180 million a year to the Philippines for the use of the facilities. To keep them running, it injects about $350 million into the local economy, providing jobs for 53,200 Filipinos. Yet the terms, if not the arrangement itself, are almost certain to change. President Marcos said last week that access to Clark and Subic should be regulated by a formal treaty, and he has hinted that the U.S. payment should quintuple in 1988, when renewal talks begin. His opponent, Corazon Aquino, has pledged to permit an American presence until 1991. While insisting that she is keeping her options open, she says, "There will be an eventual removal of the bases."

In 1947, a year after the Philippines gained independence from the U.S., the two countries signed an agreement permitting the U.S. military to operate Clark and Subic for 99 years. In 1959 the term was shortened to 25 years, subject to renewal or cancellation every five years. During the 1979 negotiations, Marcos exploited anti-American sentiment and demanded $7.5 billion in "rent." Eventually, he settled for sovereignty over both bases plus $900 million in assistance over five years. One reason that the U.S. was willing to placate Marcos was that the Soviet Union has since 1979 slowly established a major naval complex at the fomer U.S. base at Cam Ranh Bay in Viet Nam, about 750 miles west of the Philippines. The deep natural harbor at Subic Bay, 50 miles northwest of Manila on the South China Sea, is the primary support and logistics base for the U.S. Seventh Fleet's 80 ships and 550 aircraft. Four floating dry docks can accommodate surface craft or submarines. Its supply depot is the Navy's largest, and its magazine holds 3.8 million cu. ft. of ammunition. Some 4,500 Filipino technicians keep 70 ships a month in good repair. The workers earn a typical salary of $1.80 an hour, one-seventh the amount in U.S. shipyards.

Clark, whose parade ground was once grazing land for the horses of the U.S. Fifth Cavalry, has a 10,500-ft. landing strip that can handle any U.S. Air Force plane. It is also a vital logistics base, storing 200,000 sq. ft. of ammunition and 1 million sq. ft. of war materiel, from spare parts to blankets. Nuclear weapons are believed to be stored at both Clark and Subic Bay.

The prospect of being forced to close and relocate the two bases causes shudders in Washington. Because no single location offers the advantages of Clark, the air base's functions would probably have to be distributed among facilities in Japan and Guam. An alternative for the naval station could be found at Palau. But no other site offers a skilled labor force that could duplicate the huge volume and the low cost of maintenance performed at Subic. The two bases are, as a report by Georgetown University's Center for Strategic and International Studies puts it, "simply irreplaceable."