Foreign Relations: Formula from the Philippines

FOREIGN RELATIONS

The nation last week offered a vibrant welcome to an Asian statesman who stands to lose more than an argument if the U.S. reneges on its commitments across the Pacific. Only ten months after a resounding election victory, President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines flew to Washington for a state visit that meant far more to him, and his hosts, than the usual red-carpeted round of pleasantries. For Marcos, it represented a threefold opportunity — to renew a long-standing bond of friendship with the U.S., to make a case for increased U.S. aid to bail out his stagnating econ omy, and to impress on Americans some home truths about the realities of power in Asia. With willing assistance from Washington, Marcos made the most of his opportunity.

Leadership & Loneliness. Marcos’ good looks, poise and fame as the Philippines’ most decorated hero of World War II (27 medals, including the U.S.

Distinguished Service Cross) all contributed to the enthusiastic reception.

So did his stunning wife Imelda, Miss Manila 1954, who, at 36, is still so pret ty that the latest Filipino entry in the Miss Universe contest could declare without diplomatic deference that at least one woman in the islands was better-looking: the President’s wife.

Their first morning in Washington, Marcos and Imelda were escorted to the north portico of the White House. There Lyndon Johnson’s warm greeting reflected his gratitude for Marcos’ decision, in the face of strong congressional opposition and strident criticism from local leftists and nationalists, to commit a 2,000-man Filipino force to Viet Nam. On the eve of his departure for his 15-day U.S. swing, Marcos had seen off 700 members of a security battalion before they boarded two Saigon-bound troopships. Said Johnson, obviously moved: “Your people and mine have shared suffering and victory. So we are not only friends; we are brothers.”

Marcos responded by discarding a memorized four-paragraph speech for a longer, more emotional, off-the-cuff oration. The President of the Philippines paid feeling tribute to the President of the U.S.—who needs every encomium he can get. “We thank you for utilizing your powers with restraint and wisdom,” said Marcos. “Leadership is the other side of the coin of loneliness, and he who is a leader must always act alone. And acting alone, accept everything alone.” Thanking the U.S. for moving so swiftly after World War II to grant the Philippines independence after 48 years of colonial rule, he declared: “For over seven decades, your nation and mine have walked the path of democracy. We have followed you. And we do not regret it.”

Nicely-Nicely Johnson. From then on, it was a whirl of receptions and dinners. Imelda, dressed for each occasion in one of 40 butterfly-sleeved Filipino ter-nos that she had brought along, was usually the center of attention. Her yellow terno caught Lyndon Johnson’s eye. “That is my favorite color too—yellow,” he told her. “Actually,” she confided later, “my favorite color is pink. But he is the President.”

After a formal White House dinner, the New York City Center Light Opera Company regaled the 180 guests in the East Room with songs from Broadway musicals—including Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat, a number from Guys and Dolls sung by that inveterate crap-shooter and horse player, Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Not to be outdone, Imelda rose during a reception for the U.S. President at the Shoreham Hotel the following night and sang Because of You in her native Tagalog, aiming every inflection at a radiant Lyndon Johnson.

When Marcos stepped up to a small podium beneath the Speaker’s desk in the House to address a joint session of Congress, he regained the spotlight with a carefully reasoned plea for a continued U.S. presence in Asia (see ESSAY). “Today we send our sons in total commitment to South Viet Nam on an errand of mercy, although we face the retaliation of armed Communism in our own land,” he said. Eying Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright who sat—on his hands —a few rows away, he said: “We note a hesitancy, some frustration and doubts in America” about the war.

Nevertheless, he said, the continued presence of American power in the area is “an indispensable factor in maintaining the stability of Southeast Asia.” Moreover, President Marcos continued, “it is only American military power that is acceptable in Asia and great enough to deter Communist China’s aggressive tendencies.” Pointedly, he recalled that the U.S. was deeply involved in Asia for more than half a century before World War I returned its focus to Europe. ‘The U.S.,” he said, “was a Pacific power long before it was an Atlantic power.”

At one point in his speech, Marcos confessed: “I have been hounded by criticism that I am much too pro-American.” Nonetheless, Marcos and his countrymen are far from tame clients. Nationalism is the most potent political force among the 32 million people who inhabit the 7,000 islands of the Philippine archipelago, and the form it usually takes is anti-Americanism.

Impressive Beginnings. With some justification, many Filipinos resent the volume of U.S. aid to Viet Nam and Thailand, and one of Marcos’ objectives in visiting Washington was to warn that without more U.S. help, the Philippines could well turn into the Viet Nam of the 1970s. Absurd? Only 15 years ago, the Communist Huk guerrillas came perilously close to taking over the nation. Even now, central Luzon is seeing a recrudescence of Huk terror as some 1,000 armed guerrillas, supported by an estimated 27,000 peasants, prowl the forests.

With vigor and imagination, Marcos has set out to eliminate smuggling, which bleeds the treasury of $100 million in taxes a year; streamline swollen bureaucracies where graft has long been a way of life; and, especially, reform an anachronistic agricultural economy that has as much acreage under cultivation as Japan but turns out only 25% as much rice. Impressed by such beginnings, Lyndon Johnson last week promised his guest everything he came to Washington to get. The U.S. agreed to: — Provide an added $21 million (to the current $24 million) for such agricultural programs as irrigation, rice growing and rural electrification. — Equip ten army battalions (cost: $20 million) for rural-development projects, especially in central Luzon.

> Pay compensation to Filipino veterans of World War II and their de pendents, whose long-debated claims now total $800 million. While Congress will not agree to any such amount, one State Department official says that the final settlement is likely to be “a substantial one.”

> Cut the duration of U.S. leases on four big military bases in the Philippines to 25 years, subject to renegotiations. The date for U.S. withdrawal was moved up from 2046 to 1991.

A Better Life. “He’s taking back everything but the crown jewels,” marveled a U.S. official after Marcos tied up his aid package. Few members of the Johnson Administration would be grudge him his prize. Washington learned the mettle of the Filipinos a decade ago, when they won their own counterinsurgency war without foreign troops, and may find their experience even more relevant today. As Marcos remarked to the National Press Club last week, suppressing the rebels involved a two-pronged approach—”total war against the Communists and total friendship to the people, who may be misled and who constitute the mass base of Communism.” Where the U.S. is failing in Viet Nam, in his view, is in its economic-development program. Said Marcos: “We are not winning the war for the hearts and souls of men.”

In central Luzon, Marcos’ own formula is a blend of military and civic action, with emphasis on the latter. “Call it anything you like,” he says, “community development, civic action, rural reconstruction, revolutionary development. It boils down to offering a better life to the peasant.” That, as the Johnson Administration emphasized in the Honolulu Declaration of February 1966, may ultimately prove the only formula for success in Viet Nam as well.