Securing the U.S.-Philippine Military Bases Agreement of 1947 by Stephen R. Shalom! Negotiations are currently underway on a new military may well have objected to the act simply because he could not bases agreement between the United States and the Philippines. claim the credit for himselC Be that as it may, the Antis The present agreement, which expires in 1991, was originally denounced the bases provisions as denying the Philippines signed in 1947, and although the world is very different today genuine independence, and their criticisms touched a responsive from what it was just after World War II, a look back at how the chord among informed Filipinos. United States secured base rights some four decades ago Quezon explained that his opposition to the HHC Act did provides many insights into the current U.S. effort to obtain a not mean that he was "absolutely and unqualifiedly opposed to new agreement. all kinds of United States reservations in the Philippine Islands The issue of military bases was a crucial one in the Philip­ after independence shall have been granted. But it does mean pines even before World War II. In 1933 the U.S. Congress­ that I will never give my consent to any law that gives this dis­ responding to Depression-era protectionist sentiment, hostility cretionary power to the President ofthe United States."3 On other to Filipino immigration, and isolationism-passed the Hare­ occasions, he indicated that he objected to military (as opposed Hawes-Cutting (HHC) Act that provided for Philippine inde­ to naval) bases with or without Philippine consent; thus on the pendence after a ten-year commonwealth period. Sections eve of Pearl Harbor he cabled a U.S. newspaper: "It is not true 5 and 10 of this act gave the U.S. president unilateral authority that I have ever objected to having American naval stations in within two years of Philippine independence to retain military the Philippines after independence. All I wanted was that their and naval bases for the United States. (In the jargon of the day, establishment should be with the consent of the Government of "military" included the army and the air force, but not the navy.) the Philippines. I did object to military reservations and still do Lame-duck president Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill, but Con­ object now because your having military reservations gress passed it over his veto. everywhere in the Philippines after independence would in ef­ The HHC Act specified that it would take effect only if ap­ fect nullify independence."4 proved by the Philippine legislature. That body, however, When the Philippine legislature turned down the HHC Act, rejected the act, and chief among its objections was the provi­ Quezon traveled to Washington to try to obtain an improved sion on military and naval bases. The sincerity of the act's op­ independence bill. The Philippine leader spoke to the new U.S. ponents is difficult to gauge. Manuel Quezon, the senate president, Franklin Roosevelt, who, according to Quezon, president who led the "Antis," had a long history of opposing agreed with him that a country could not be truly independent Philippine independence in private while proclaiming his undy­ ing commitment to independence in public, a stance common to the Philippine elite, who greatly benefited from colonial trade relations. Two of Quezon's leading political rivals-Sergio Osmefia and Manuel Roxas-were the Philippine politicians 2. See Theodore Friend, Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the credited with securing U.S. passage ofthe HHC Act, and Quezon Philippines, 1929-1946 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965), pp.109-35. 3. Quezon statement, 5 July 1933, Manuel L. Quezon Papers, series 8, box 60, National Library, Manila. (Papers hereafter referred to as Quezon Papers.) 1. I would like to thank Henry Gerald P. Ysaac, Jr., for invaluable re­ 4. Quezon to William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard Newspapers, 4 search assistance. Dec. 1941, Quezon Papers, series 5, box 114. © BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial3 use only. www.bcasnet.org U.S. president Roosevelt signing the Tydings-McDuffie Act in /934. This act granted the Philippines inde­ pendence but left an opening for u.s. bases to remain there. Manuel Quezon is at Roosevelt's left. and Manuel Roxas is third from the right in the rear. This photo and the third and the fourth ones in this article are from the U.S. National Archives, courtesy ofStephen Shalom. with foreign military bases on its soil.s In March 1934 a new bill be needed for the United States to enforce its preeminent was passed by the U.S. Congress. the Tydings-McDuffie Act. position. more or less identical to the earlier independence act except that Quezon, in exile in Washington, saw an opportunity to hitch it stated that the United States would have no military bases in his fortunes to the rising U.S. star. At the end of 1942. in a draft the Philippines after independence. but that naval reservations memorandum to Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. held by the United States would be retained until negotiations Quezon wrote: "I am ready to be on record as advocating that between Washington and Manila within two years of inde­ the United States assume leadership and full responsibility for pendence settled all questions relating to such facilities. the maintenance ofpeace in the Pacific in the years to come after The Tydings-McDuffie Act did not offer the Philippines the the war." Other nations may try to interfere with U.S. rights and "real and complete" independence that Quezon claimed for it.6 markets in Asia, as Japan did in China, Quezon advised, and the given that the failure of postindependence negotiations to reach United States would have to be strong in order to serve notice agreement on naval bases would leave the United States in that such interference "will meet instant and effective punish­ possession ofany naval reservations previously retained. Never­ ment." Quezon noted that he favored the establishment ofan in­ theless. the Philippine legislature accepted the act. and a Philip­ ternational police force. but only if "Uncle Sam were. in effect. pine commonwealth was soon inaugurated. with Quezon as its the Chief ofPolice." The United States. he asserted, should have president and independence scheduled to follow a decade hence. air and naval bases in the Philippines "from where you can strike Before that date was reached. however. the Japanese against any country that may try to impinge on your rights." And. invaded the Philippines. During the course of the war. U.S. to be secure in the Philippines. the United States should take all policy makers determined that the United States would emerge the Japanese-mandated islands.7 as the dominant world power and that a network of bases would Now there is nothing wrong when someone changes his or her mind, and certainly the devastation of World War II changed a lot of minds on a lot of questions relating to war and peace. 5. Manuel Quezon, The Good Fight (New York: D. Appleton-Century Co., 1946 [reprint Manila: Cacho Hermanos, Inc., 1985]), p. 151. 6. "Press Statement of Senate President Manuel L. Quezon," Wash­ 7. Quezon to Sumner Welles, undated draft, in Nov. 1942 folder, Quezon ington, D.C., 22 Mar. 1934, Quezon Papers, series 8, box 67. Papers, series 5, box 116. © BCAS. All rights reserved. For non-commercial4 use only. www.bcasnet.org Quezon claimed that the war had taught everyone the lesson that the only security "PIOSE BASES for small nations was foreign military W',-L pROT6c;..r (,AS, bases. Other approaches to national defense, such as neutralization or £R. 'MfiAN YOU, civilian-based defense, were purportedly FRoM E.'/.-reRNAL A.~RSSSION refuted by the Philippines' own ex­ perience, for, according to Quezon, his country had sought to follow a defense policy before the war based on that of Switzerland, with grim results. In fact, however, Philippine prewar defense policy departed from the Swiss approach in many crucial respects, most notably in that the Philippines housed foreign military bases with offensive potential while it was supposedly seeking neutralization. 8 That the United States had rushed massive amounts of military Who actually benefits from the U.S. bases in the Philippines? Some feel that rather than equipment to its bases in the Philippines advancing national security and peace they imperil the peoples ofboth the Philippines in the six months before Pearl Harbor to and the United States. Magnetsfor nuclear holocaust, they serve only the interests ofu.s. no avail or that the impregnable British investors and the Philippine elite. This cartoon and the above sentiments were part ofan base at Singapore was quickly overrun by editorial in the Philippine Human Rights UPDATE (Manila. the Philippines), vol. 3. no. 8 (15 April-14 May 1988) and are reproduced here courtesy of the Philippine Human the Japanese Imperial Army might have Rights UPDATE. suggested that foreign bases were hardly a guarantee against invasion and con­ quest. To Quezon there were surely other considerations leading United States and the Philippines following the war, Quezon him to favor U.S. bases aside from reasons of national security. wrote Roosevelt, "should be as close, if not closer" than before; By tying Philippine fortunes to those of the United States, this would be important for peace and "also necessary in the in­ Quezon hoped to obtain a continuation of the trade relations that terest of occidental civilization and occidental influence in the had proved so profitable to the Philippine elite: U.S. bases in the Far East."ll Philippines, Quezon wrote Welles, "must of necessity require In May 1943 Quezon formally called for the conclusion of that in our trade relations you place the Philippines in at least the a tentative bases agreement between the United States and the same plane as you would place, say, Cuba."" Philippines.