Professional Documents
Culture Documents
To cite this article: Adrian E. Cristobal & A. James Gregor (1987) The Philippines and the United
States: A short history of the security connection, Comparative Strategy, 6:1, 61-89, DOI:
10.1080/01495938708402703
Article views: 17
Download by: [Library Services City University London] Date: 23 April 2016, At: 08:22
The Philippines and the
United States: A Short History
of the Security Connection
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
Adrian E. Cristobal
Regent, University of Philippines
Quezon City, Metro Manila
A. James Gregor
Institute of International Studies
University of California
Berkeley, California
61
62 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
tion" bringing Corazon Aquino to power in 1986. At the present
time, the future of the security relationship between the United
States and the Philippines is uncertain. The Aquino administra-
tion is under considerable pressure from the domestic political
left and Filipino nationalists to terminate the relationship and
have the U.S. forces vacate the bases that remain on Philippine
soil. How Washington manages its general relationship with the
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
for both the United States and the Philippines. While Spain was
being defeated in Santiago and at San Juan Hill, Commodore
George Dewey, half a world away, had already defeated the aging
Spanish fleet in Manila harbor. U.S. Marines ultimately came to
occupy the capital of the Philippines, and Washington was com-
pelled to deal with the issue of the disposition of the Spanish
colony in the West Pacific.
It is clear that at the end of the conflict with Spain there had
been no U.S. consensus concerning the resolution of the Philip-
pine problem. Filipino revolutionaries under the leadership of
Emilio Aguinaldo had effectively defeated the Spanish forces in
the islands and sought independence for their people. Many
Americans agreed and advocated a total withdrawal of U.S.
forces from the archipelago. Even Mahan and his closest sup-
porters, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, remained
undecided. President William McKinley himself remained inde-
cisive until negotiations began at the end of 1898. Ultimately, the
decision was made that saw the control over the islands pass
from Spain to the United States.
Actually, Americans were so divided over how to deal with the
sovereignty of the Philippines that the Treaty of Paris was con-
firmed by a margin of only a single vote in the Senate. Alfred
Thayer Mahan, the architect of the "new outward oriented for-
eign policy" that seemed to sanction expansion into the Pacific,
was himself unsure. An advocate of overseas naval bases, he
seems to have suggested that Manila harbor and its immediate
environs might be held by U.S. forces as a coaling station and the
remainder of the islands be accorded their independence. At
another point he apparently decided that the entire island of
Luzon was required for U.S. security, providing a defense in
depth for the projected naval base.
66 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
McKinley's decision to assume responsibility for the entire
archipelago seems to have been motivated by at least two consid-
erations: (1) It was reasonably clear that several of the "Great
Powers" were prepared to seize control of the islands had the
United States withdrawn; and (2) there was a conviction in the
American business community that a "vast China market" ex-
isted that awaited U.S. export products and that a "coaling sta-
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
the strategic worth that [those] islands [possessed] for Japan in their
dominion over Asia and Asiatic hegemony. . . . The Philippine Is-
lands bear the same strategic relationship to the Southern Asian
coast as the Japanese islands do to the Northern, with the exception
that the Philippines have the additional strategic value of command-
ing all shiproutes from Europe to the Far East.11
forces.
Even that loss was not the end. At the very height of the
campaign to reconquer the Philippines, the United States high
command withdrew fighting and transport forces from the area in
order to assist activities being conducted in Europe.16 In effect,
even in the final hour of their torment, Filipinos were required to
sacrifice once again in the pursuit of a strategy that either ne-
glected their interests or subordinated them to those of Euro-
peans.
Nothing seemed to change at the successful conclusion of the
conflict. The Philippines, no less than Europe, had been devas-
tated by enemy occupation, enemy exactions, and the subse-
quent reconquest by Allied forces. The loss of life and the
destruction of property in the Philippines were among the heav-
iest suffered by any belligerant during World War II.
Knowledgeable Filipinos understand full well what had trans-
pired. They understood that there had been articulate and impor-
tant interest groups in the United States that had sought
permanent military bases in the Philippines in order to protect
U.S. national interests as well as afford access to East Asian
markets. Admiral Mahan, and those he supplied with his argu-
ments, had engineered a relationship with the Philippines that
served U.S. interests eminently well.17 What was missing was a
will, or an ability, to provide for the adequate defense of the
islands against perfectly predictable aggression.18
As a consequence of neglect or the result of conscious policy,
the Philippines were abandoned to the invasion of the Japanese
in 1941. The subsequent counteroffensive by the Allied forces
exacted massive destruction. Public utilities, piers, docks, plants
and warehouses, offices, and both government and private build-
ings, including churches, schools, museums, and theaters, were
all consumed in the general devastation. General Dwight
72 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
Eisenhower, in visiting Manila in May 1946, lamented that "with
the exception of Warsaw, this is the worse destruction I have ever
seen." 19 Not only had the security relationship with the United
States failed to protect the Philippines against the predictable
aggression from Japan, but the effort to undo that aggression
inflicted further, more grievous devastation on the unfortunate
islands.
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
The Consequences
Following the termination of the war in the Pacific, and as a
consequence of these experiences, there developed among a
substantial minority of Filipinos serious reservations concerning
any security relationship between the Philippines and the United
States. Perhaps the most articulate and persuasive spokesman
among those who entertained those reservations was Senator
Claro M. Recto, now identified as the "father" of modern Philip-
pine nationalism.
Recto lamented the fact that although the United States recog-
nized the critical importance of the Philippines in terms of Amer-
ican interests in the West Pacific, U.S. officials failed either to
provide for the defense of the islands or to compensate for losses
suffered by those islands as a consequence of that negligence.21
Many Filipinos who had fought against the Japanese, either at
the time of the invasion or during the occupation, failed to
receive even minimum compensation. 22 The inevitable con-
sequence was disillusionment with the United States and a mea-
sure of alienation.
The Philippines-U.S. Security Connection 73
Given the history of the security relations between the Philip-
pines and the United States, it is comprehensible that an appre-
ciable number of Filipinos entertained serious reservations
concerning the reestablishment of those relations after the grant
of Philippine independence in 1946. After the defeat of Japan,
representatives of the United States made eminently clear that
Washington still considered the archipelago to be of critical
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
strategic importance. After the end of World War II, bases in the
Philippines would still be required not only to ensure the security
of critical lines of communication in the entire West Pacific, but
also to allow for rapid deployment and forward projection of U.S.
military forces to contain aggressive communist elements in the
unstable Southeast Asian quadrant.23
Because Americans remained convinced of the strategic im-
portance of the archipelago, unrestricted U.S. access to island
bases became, in effect, a precondition for the grant of Philippine
independence. According to the subsequent bases agreement,
the armed forces of the United States were accorded privileged
access to sixteen military bases, wide-ranging use of the com-
munications infrastructure of the islands, and essentially sov-
ereign control over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers
of Philippine soil.
Still smarting under the recent experiences suffered during and
immediately after World War II, an articulate minority of Fil-
ipinos objected to the security relations so established. Not only
did they object to what they considered the violation of the new
nation's sovereignty in allowing the United States unrestricted
access to the bases, but they warned their compatriots that a
military association with the United States would make inevita-
ble Philippine involvement in any conflict that broke out between
Washington and any other regional or global power. It was not at
all clear to these critics that Philippine involvement would serve
Philippine interests or that the United States could or would
effectively defend the islands.24
By the mid-1960s, Filipino arguments against the security rela-
tions with the United States had begun to take on a fairly co-
herent and standard content. It was maintained that whatever the
importance of the Philippines to the United States, American
priorities would favor Europe. U.S. security relations with the
74 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, involved an
automatic engagement clause that ensured U.S. commitment to
the nations of Western Europe in the event of armed aggression
against them. The security treaty with the Philippines, signed in
1951, on the other hand, entailed no more than a recourse to
"constitutional processes" in the United States should the archi-
pelago be subject to foreign aggression. The critics of the Philip-
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
by the United States at Cam Ranh Bay during the Vietnam War.
By 1983, the Soviet military presence in Southeast Asia had
become quite formidable. Anywhere from twenty to thirty Soviet
naval combatants now use Cam Ranh Bay on a regular basis. At
least four submarines, both conventionally and nuclear powered,
together with cruise-missile-capable cruisers and destroyers, use
the bases. They utilize the supplemented piers, the hardened
submarine pens, and the underground storage tanks. Two very
large floating drydocks have been moved into the bay, and mas-
sive electronic navigational and surveillance equipment now
functions in the area. The on-station vessels at Cam Ranh have
been supplemented by port calls from the Soviet aircraft carrier
Minsk, the 28,000-ton nuclear-powered missile-capable cruiser
Frunze, and the destroyers Osmotritelny and Strogy. The aircraft
carrier Novorossiysk has been transferred to the Soviet Pacific
Fleet as well, and it is available for service in Southeast Asia.
In Southeast Asia the Soviet Union has put together all the
necessary elements of a tactical naval warfare strategy: the abil-
ity to launch preemptive antiship and antisurface cruise-missile
strikes from aircraft and surface vessels and torpedo strikes
against Western alliance shipping and combatants—augmented
by land-based air cover and command and control capabilities,
as well as substantial amphibious potential.33 In April 1984, as
though to confirm the effectiveness of the buildup, a Soviet-
Vietnamese joint amphibious exercise was undertaken south of
Haiphong. Vietnamese landing ships and frigates were joined by
a Soviet naval infantry battalion transported by the amphibious
assault ship Aleksandr Nikoleyev, escorted by the Minsk and
other major Soviet combatants.34
At the end of 1983, Soviet forces in Vietnam were significantly
supplemented by ten nuclear-capable Tupolev Tu-16 Badger me-
78 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
dium-range bombers. The 1,500-mile combat radius of the
Badger puts Soviet strike forces within range of the capitals of
Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Phi-
lippines. The Badgers complement the force of Tupolev Tu-142
Bears, already on station in Vietnam, whose mission is long-
range reconnaissance and targeting for nuclear and conventional
missile attacks. These air assets are afforded land-based air cover
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
risen dramatically. In the Tonkin Gulf both Vietnam and the PRC
have conflicting claims. In the Gulf of Thailand, Thai maritime
claims conflict with those of Vietnam and Kampuchea. Indonesia
occupies the Natuna Islands, but its exclusive economic zone
overlaps with that of Vietnam and the PRC, and the farthest
claims of Beijing in the South China Sea overlap with those of
Brunei. It seems evident that in such an environment the pres-
ence of U.S. forces reduces the risk of conflict. The Soviet Union
has shown itself to be risk averse, and the PRC has been loath to
commit major military equipment to any undertaking that threat-
ens heavy losses. Given Philippine involvement in an environ-
ment as hazardous as that of the South China Sea, the presence
of U.S. air and naval forces has much to recommend it as a
deterrent to misadventure in the region.
The prevailing realities of the situation in Southeast Asia could
hardly fail to impress thinking Filipinos. Thus Salvador Laurel's
decision to support the demand for immediate abrogation of the
Philippine-U.S. bases agreement42 began to sound more than a
little quaint. The entire notion that there should be a loosening of
security ties to the United States sounded more like pique than
international statesmanship.
By the beginning of 1986, however, it was difficult to see how
the nonradical anti-Marcos opposition in the Philippines could
back away from the explicit commitments it had made con-
cerning the abrogation of the Philippine-U.S. bases agreement43
without sacrificing much of their political credibility. By the time
of the fateful election campaign of February 1986, many of the
principal leaders of the anti-Marcos opposition had burdened
themselves with postures in terms of Philippine-U.S. security
relations that were almost indistinguishable from those of the
radical left.44
82 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
The first response made by the leaders of the noncommunist
anti-Marcos opposition when faced with the actual prospect of
accession to power was to disclaim their publicly affirmed com-
mitments. Early in the course of the presidential campaign, for
example, both Salvador Laurel and Corazon Aquino attempted
to vacate their "sacred" pledges to see "foreign troops" expelled
from the Philippine Islands and "security ties with foreign
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
Notes
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016
and Reform (Quezon City: Filipiniana, 1974), pp. 7-9, notes 22 and 31;
see also the discussion, pp. 12, 13, 16, and 20.
18. Ibid., p. 42.
19. See The Philippines (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of
State, Publication 5508, Far Eastern Series 66, 1954), p. 5.
20. Ventura, United States-Philippine Cooperation, p. 107.
21. See, for example, the discussion in David Bernstein, The Philip-
pine Story (New York: Farrar, Strauss, 1947), and the comments by
David Joel Steinberg, The Philippines: A Singular and Plural Place
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), p. 59.
22. See Emilio Aquinaldo and Vicente Pacis, A Second Look at
America (New York: Robert Spelier & Sons, 1957), pp. 227-229.
23. See the discussion in Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The United
States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism (Philadelphia:
Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1981), pp. 59-61.
24. See the discussion in Emerenciana Y. Arcellana, The Social and
Political Thought of Claw Mayo Recto (Manila: National Research
Council of the Philippines, 1981), chap. 4.
25. See the arguments in The Benitez Papers on Neutrality, edited by
Conchita Liboro de Benitez (Manila: de Benitez, 1972).
26. See the relative political pronouncements in Jose Veloso Abueva,
Filipino Politics, Nationalism and Emerging Ideologies: Background
for Constitution-Making (Manila: Modern Book, 1972), pp. 143, 162-
163, 169-170.
27. Characteristic expression of these arguments is found in Ale-
jandro Lichauco, The Lichauco Paper: Imperialism in the Philippines
(New York: Monthly Review, 1973).
28. Arcellana, Thought of Recto, p. 106.
29. Lichauco, Lichauco Paper, pp. 109-111.
30. See the sentiments expressed in The State of the Nation After
Three Years of Martial Law, September 21, 1975, edited by Jose Diokno
and Lorenzo Tafiada. (San Francisco: Civil Liberties Union of the
Philippines, 1976).
31. For the full text of the "unity platform" see Veritas (Manila),
88 Adrian E. Cristobal and A. James Gregor
January 6, 1985. For a more ample discussion of the positions enter-
tained by the "moderate" anti-Marcos opposition, see A. James
Gregor, Crisis in the Philippines (Washington, D.C.: Ethics and Public
Policy Center, 1984), chap. 4.
32. William Branigin, "As Talks Approach, Philippine Opposition to
the U.S. Bases Grows," International Herald Tribune, May 5, 1983.
33. Richard D. Fisher, Jr., Moscow's Growing Muscle in Southeast
Downloaded by [Library Services City University London] at 08:22 23 April 2016