The Diplomatic Record 1991-1992 by Hans Binnendijk

Author:Hans Binnendijk [Binnendijk, Hans]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780813316888
Google: _qIGyAEACAAJ
Goodreads: 4123251
Publisher: Westview Press
Published: 1992-12-01T00:00:00+00:00

June 1991: Mt. Pinatubo Erupts

The cataclysmic eruption of Mt. Pinatubo rearranged the landscape of central Luzon, and, with it, the agenda of the base negotiations. Within hours, Clark Airbase, Camp O’Donnell, Wallace Air Station, and Naval Station San Miguel were all but off the agenda. Clark, in particular, had been rendered useless by the prospect of future massive mudslides from volcanic ash, hundreds of feet deep, accumulated on the slopes of Pinatubo. Camp John Hay, a rest and recreation center in northern Luzon, was unaffected by the volcano and returned, as previously scheduled, to full Philippine control on July 1, 1991. Subic Naval Base, though not subject to prospective mudflows, was virtually buried in volcanic ash and saddled with reconstitution costs estimated in excess of $250 million.

How to proceed in the wake of Pinatubo presented a real dilemma. The American embassy in Manila was of the view that all the SOFA and operational obstacles might be dismantled in short order if US negotiators were to restate the essentials of the emerging deal in terms of the US compensation proposal of May coupled with the Philippine’s “seven plus one” duration proposal of June. Although President Aquino might have accepted such a proposal with alacrity, opponents to a base agreement may well have continued their delaying tactics and prepared themselves for a final showdown in the Senate.

Pinatubo created a new situation for the United States. The Navy would not have been eager to spend money for Subic’s complete reconstitution if it could anticipate only a seven-year tenure. Congress and the American people, moreover, transfixed by the images of Pinatubo’s destructive fury, might have thought the administration extravagant to offer the same amount of money for the use of one severely damaged installation. It was, after all, the Philippines that had given the negotiations the ambience of a particularly contentious real estate transaction. The US team’s negotiating guidance was clear—get more time for Subic in order to amortize the repair costs and lower the amounts explicitly linked to base compensation. Above all, US negotiators were to seek an agreement that would not outrage Congress or inflame American public opinion.

The US approach, therefore, consisted of the following:

In view of the massive humanitarian problems caused by Pinatubo, the United States would seek to keep intact the entire sum ($362.8 million) in base-related compensation requested by the president for fiscal year 1992.

The United States would seek a duration of ten years for Subic Naval Base and give up all the remaining facilities.

From 1993 on, the United States would again try to delink aid and bases. The US delegation proposed that Manila accept something akin to the formulation worked out between the United States and Greece in recent base negotiations—that is, a specific US assistance undertaking would be made for one year only, accompanied by a commitment to seek unspecified “appropriate levels” for the agreement’s remaining years. Such an approach would spare the Aquino government the political risk of being seen as accepting a lower compensation amount in the wake of Pinatubo by injecting into the formulation a very large dose of creative ambiguity.

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