The people of the Philippines had been under colonialism for most of its written history since the explorer Magellan had discovered it and claimed it for Spain in 1521. Formal rule and virtual enslavement of the Filipinos was established by the Spanish Castile government in 1565 and remained intact until the US government, with the help of the Navy, forcibly removed the Spanish in 1898. Understandably, the Philippine people desired autonomous self rule and under the leadership of Manuel Quezon, established a 10 year plan of transitional independence commencing in 1934. Although the initial “US Territorial” control of the P.I. resembled the common traits of colonialism(in putting down disparate rebellions in order to keep all of the Philippines united), within 20 years one might better use the term of “Protectorate”, even though US territorial laws prevailed in the pursuit of law, order, and economic development. The obvious fly in the ointment for Filipinos seeking to achieve complete autonomy was Japan’s aspiration to conquer and control the majority of the Pacific Rim, including the Philippines. As mentioned earlier, the American’s War Plan Orange, which was initially developed 30 years prior to the arrival of Japanese hostilities, had been played out in the US Naval War College and might have been successful if the Japanese attacked 2 years later(when the full logistical plan would have been completed, and full AAF and Naval assets been established; and the over riding strategy of Rainbow Five had not been implemented to fight on 2 major war fronts). So Independence necessarily took a back seat to first defeating the Japanese. Once the Japanese surrendered in August of 1945, small garrisons of the IJA remained scattered throughout the Philippines that were not in communication with the high command and continued their presence and fight in the pockets they were left to defend. So the mop-up continued with USAFFE forces and the Philippines was finally granted independence under President Ramon Magsaysay on June 12, 1946.
Post War Politics through 1989
Once the Japanese had been cleared out, the Philippines did its best to a return to a normal way of life, which for the average Filipino meant a return to poverty. Subsistence rice and sugar cane farming, non-industrialized fishing, tourism and the numerous US military bases yielded employment for the lucky, yet it remained inadequate to keep the Filipinos out of poverty. The fate of the US bases was ultimately due to expire in 1991. Given the $450 million dollars paid annually to the Philippine government for the rental of Clark and Subic, not to mention the 65,000 on-base jobs the bases provided, in addition to the estimated 100,000+ collateral off-base jobs, sample polling of the Filipinos living in the barangays(barrios) over near the bases overwhelmingly supported the lease renewal in 1991. Yet the Philippine political class voted the bases closed in the name of self-determination(and well documented corrupt personal/politically connected aggrandizement). Section 6 shall discuss various attempts to save Clark and Subic as economic zones that proved largely unsuccessful (for various reasons), and in the wake of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption.
One issue that has always been inherent to the Philippines is its ethnic diversity. From a 50,000 ft. view, the Filipinos appear to be dominantly Roman Catholic(RC) on Luzon and in the southern islands, Islamic. There have been migration attempts to populate the Visayas by some of the RC population with only moderate success, the “native” Muslims naturally resenting the RC interlopers. The Muslim population is consistent with its proximity to Malaysia and Indonesia whose dominant faith is Muslim, given the historic migration which occurred over several millennia. Most Luzon Filipinos consider themselves “lowlanders”, yet within this group exist 80 dialects. The Ilocanos are located along the coastal plains and agricultural valleys of northern Luzon. The Bicolanos exist primarily in the southeastern section of Luzon. The Visayas(Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Negros, Panay, Samar) all having distinct dialects. Mindanao is primarily Muslim with recent RC transplants having dialects associated with their ancestral homelands. Within the Muslim population in the southern islands, there exist 5 dominant dialects associated with their physical location. One can only imagine the immense task of unifying such an enormous “tribalized” population, each with its own ethnicity, customs, traditions, and languages. The most visible (to the media) has been the civil warfare between the Muslims(who feel abandoned by the power brokers in Manila) and the RC’s, primarily on Luzon. Yet this speaks little to political corruption, despite many reform attempts, that has resulted in the impoverished misery visited upon the vast majority of average Filipinos, who endure hardships unfamiliar to most Americans, on a daily basis.
For their part, the Filipino political class drafted and passed their own national constitution. Unsurprisingly, the constitution was modeled in large part after the U.S. constitution. A notable difference is the higher level of power allocated to the president(one 6 year term), somewhat perturbing the checks and balances of the president established by the founders of the US constitution. This seemed like a reasonable first step for the newly independent government, in that it produced an economy that someday might emulate the US system that has fostered prosperity. The new constitution could always be amended if need be. Meanwhile, it seemed the politicians always seemed to grow their wealth while a super-majority of the population remained below the international poverty level.
The commissioning of US NRTF, Capas occurred in 1962 with official Naval Program bulletin stating “U.S. Naval Radio Station (T) Tarlac, in the Philippines, is completed and goes into full on-the-air operations. The new transmitting station replaces and expands the functions of Navy transmitting station at Bagobantay, Quezon City, which is phased out and disestablished.
US NRTF Naval Personnel Accounts at Capas, Tarlac
Richard Evans, ET2, 1965-68
I arrived at Clark AFB wearing dress blues, having flown in from Travis AFB in CA. Needless to say, I recognized my error immediately because it must have been 100 degs. on the tarmac. A very large Master Chief met us and said “Get on the bus” and away we went to Subic. After checking in at Subic, a YN1 said you’re in the wrong place and to get on the bus to San Miguel. When I got to San Miguel, and checked in, the next day a PN1 said don’t unpack, you’re going to the best duty in the P.I. and he was right.
Tarlac became my home for the next 3 years and I miss it even now. From riding around the perimeter of the base in the jeep at night, to steaming at the Hill Top Bar, or movies at the Shipwreck Club, it was home.
I was assigned to the CCL room working for ET2 Jones. It was a short apprenticeship because ET2 Jones packed his seabag and left. Needless to say, Seaman Evans hoped nothing broke. I worked on the (AN/FRT) 39’s and 40’s, the tropo to San Miguel, Big Sam, and just about everything else. Spent a lot of time in the ET shop/screen room in the northeast corner of Main Deck.
Married a local girl that worked on Clark and we are still married to this day. Got off of active duty in 1968 and managed to hang around the reserve center till I got my 20. Worked for General Telephone and Electronics for 30 years and retired. Moved to Las Vegas in 1999 and took a job with CenturyLink doing microwave repair and still work for them today.
Morris(Marv) Hervey, RM2, 1968-69
I reported to NavComStaPhil in late Jan. 1968. I was there only a handful of days when they decided I was going to the “transmitter site at Tarlac”. I was very disappointed , believing that my prospects would be better in San Miguel! Little did I know tht the best duty station in the PI was waiting for me!
Initially, I stood watch with Ron Cook’s (RM1) section on Main Deck (for about 4-5 months), then moved over to Bullhorn standing watch with RM1 Fields, then became watch supervisor there. The only exciting event at Bullhorn was when the east transmitter wing “caught fire”! Unbeknownst to me, the blower motor on one of the FRT-40’s had caught fire and the air conditioning system was catching the smoke and filling the control room with copious amounts of smoke! Geez, Loweez, looked like the whole place was gonna go up in flames. Called the base fire dept.! By the time the fire fighters got there, the power had been turned off to the transmitter, and the blower motor cooled off-there was very little smoke left in the building! Ooops! Had good times visiting Baguio, Corregidor, Manila, Balibago, Angeles.
Got out of the Navy in ’69. Spent the rest of my career in the radio communications business-retired in 2006. Now live in the Sierra Foothills in CA.
The following is a summary of hostile incidents I experienced while stationed at Capas:
-Armory Break-In, circa April, 1968
One morning I got up and heard from others that during the night someone, or some persons, had broken into the armory located below main deck. They had stolen a BAR and had been out that night brazenly parading around in the antenna fields. I was off-duty that night and slept soundly through the incident at the EM Barracks, which was then located just 100 yds from Main Deck.
ONI was called in to perform an investigation. Of course, ONI does not consider it an organizational function to let the troops know the results of their investigation, so I never heard any other info regarding the break-in. At one point, I had been in contact with the only gunner’s mate on the station, a third-class P.O. at the time. He had logged-in and registered on the message
board of Roy’s old website…navy-transmitter-facility-capas.com . He remembered the incident well, but without the old message board, there’s no way to contact him.
– Force Defense Training, circa late 1968 – early 1969
I assume, as a result of the armory break-in, sometime a handful of months later, the word was passed that we would soon begin our station defense training. We were issued combat boots and olive colored fatigue uniforms. At one point, a
Marine sergeant was brought in, from Subic I think, to assist us with training. I only remember seeing him once during the course of maybe 3 or 4 training days spread over a handful of months. He marched us a little and then doubletimed/
jogging us for a few hundred feet, asking “is anybody hurting”. Some of the sailors were older and might actually have been hurting. I
remember thinking “boy, these guys are not in good shape and I wonder how long we could hold-off a Huk attack?”. He also assisted/led a pugil stick training (simulated bayonet practice) (some photos from that training are posted on the website). I think the sergeant was also accompanied by an assistant, a corporal or
something. There was also a 1st class RM, Bates, who seemed to have been assigned some
responsibility for the weapons training and he also assisted with the pugil stick training. There was a good spot for weapons training out towards Bullhorn where there were some low hills that we could fire M-1 rifles, sidearms and a BAR into.
I don’t recall that we had many of these training sessions at all. And, I don’t know what the strategy of the NavComStaPhil CO and the Tarlac OiC were… maybe a show of force with the hope of deterring any additional Huk activities, or possibly
an actual attempt to take-over the base. In any case, I don’t think we could have held-off a determined attack of any size.
-Off-Duty Security Guards Assassinated, September – October 1969
Three off-duty base security guards were ambushed, or perhaps assassinated, after coming off-watch around midnight while on their way home in a jeepney. The incident occurred near the “Hilltop”. I guess I heard about it at a morning muster. I left the PI in late September 1969, headed for separation at NavSta Long Beach, which occurred around mid-October ’69 (Happy Day! – 😊 ). The incident happened about one week before I left… we were shocked!
Gary Hojell, ETN3, 1970-72
I arrived at Clark Air Base in the Philippines(the P.I., Philippine Islands) in the Spring of 1970. One of the most obvious features I noticed on the bus to the transient barracks at Subic, was the pervasive smell of burning wood, presumably for cooking and the dreadful business of manually producing charcoal. The people in the barangays were destitute poor, babies running around naked, ramshackle Nipa huts built on squatters land(land in which they could remain until chased off by wealthy land owners). An unusual sight to my eyes was the sight of young adolescent male friends, who would hold hands as a token of friendship.
After a couple of weeks in transit between Subic and San Miguel, I heard about a small transmitter Navy base north of Clark in Capas, Tarlac where a jeepney load of Filipino base guards were ambushed by 2 motorcyles, riders discharged their automatic weapons until they ran out of ammo. The dead and dying guards were pulled from the jeepney, which rode back and forth over the bodies rendering them unrecognizable. The following day, I received orders to report to US NAVRADSTA(T), Capas, Tarlac(Note the designation of our base had changed from the previous US NRTF). I was to later learn that this was part of a smoldering war between the ideologically communist Huks(said to have merged with the communist NPA, New People’s Army) and American bases. Such attacks would continue both on and off base. Any Filipino working on our base was considered an American colonialist sympathizer. In most cases, the guards were killed either on their way home in a tricycle or jeepney, or along the perimeter wire( a huge perimeter encompassing Bullhorn and Mainside).
I recall standing the graveyard main gate watch(0000-0400) with the armed Filipino guard I had befriended over numerous watches. At about 0100, a couple of starshells went up near the mainside perimeter wire, indicating “intruders” entering the base. As we observed, a group of armed men were heading in the direction of the EM’s barracks, and I radioed in a distress call, linked to the MAA’s shack and higher command. Within minutes, they had drawn enough attention with the armed roving patrol and additional guards, so as to chase them off base without bloodshed. Unfortunately, the Filipino guard I was standing watch with was blown away a couple of months later on his way home in a jeepney. A kind and gentle family man lost to the endemic violence around our base in Capas which was becoming the norm.
There remained one other high profile event which occurred on base. Apparently our base CMAA Kruc had arranged a meeting with the local PC colonel and the Mayor of Capas, with their entourage of bodyguards, at the base civilian canteen Quonset hut. This resulted in a perfect ambush, 2 gunmen with automatic weapons threw open the doors on the opposite ends of the Quonset, and blew away everyone inside, including the domestic female servers. One of our two “on base” PCs captured one of the gunmen, put him up against the Enlisted Men’s Club(The Shipwreck Club) and executed him. Within a couple of hours, our base was flooded battalion of heavily armed PCs, who suspected the base might be over run. I guess the odds were so unfavorable, and no further action occurred.
Hard drugs became a big problem, particularly in Olongopo, the town adjacent to Subic Bay. There in the early 1970’s, one could not walk down the main street without school age boys offering glassine envelopes of 90% pure heroin for 50 cents. It was said that the Red Chinese had organized the logistics to transport the Burmese product to Viet Nam and the Philippines, and sold it at cost, in a sense “reversing” the Opium War of the 1800’s. In Viet Nam, the statistics say as high as 34% of military personnel. In the P.I., statistics are not available, but during that era, Time magazine ran a piece citing the huge number of Navy heroin overdoses occurring of carrier group sailors on liberty in Olongopo. Another unspoken truth was that large numbers of returning veterans from VN and the P.I., brought back $300/day habits that cost them $5/day in Southeast Asia.
Otherwise, my overall experience with Filipinos was quite favorable. They were hard working, god fearing people that seemed to be making the best out of a bad situation dealt to them. It is not hard to comprehend why people would steal from the bases when they and their families struggle to feed their families. Replacing the expensive heliax cables, used to feed the transmitting antennas, was a routine operation. There was a patch panel used to connect arbitrary antennas to arbitrary transmitters, and someone working inside the transmitter bays had to convey which connection was “hot”, so as not to risk RF burns or electrocution, as the buried cables were disconnected by means of an axe.
Ferdinand Marcos, Martial Law and Initial Base Closings
The Philippines remained at status quo, with the politicians and the wealthy controlling the vast majority of property, wealth and power into the early 1970’s. Ferdinand Marcos came to power beating Diosdado Macapagal in the presidential election of 1965. As in most of the national elections, his rise to power was fostered by generous contributions and loans originated by wealthy domestic and international companies and banks having monetary interests in growing their Philippine businesses. These political influencing affairs were becoming increasingly violent, whereby the winning candidate was often the candidate still alive come election day. In 1972, nearing the end of Marcos’s last constitutionally permitted term, Marcos cited a growing communist insurgency as the necessary measure to maintain peaceful control. It is plausible, to this author and many other observers, that international communism was making new inroads to overthrow the capitalist-American order in the P.I. Recognize that the US was in full withdrawal mode from Viet Nam, and given this was the public stated goal of global communism(world domination), while the Americans’ primary strategic interest was in keeping the bases open and operating, and the Philippines out of communist hands. The US therefore looked the other way while Marcos and his Army of PC’s ruled by political and economic repression, censorship, human rights violations, corporate monopolies. Bear in mind, the human “misery index” measurable in poverty levels, inner city ghetto starvation and disease, poor public education and rural subsistence farming were struggling to survive, and to them, any system other than the existing one was worth trying. So the ground was fertile for a country wide communist insurgency. The government might best be described as crony capitalism(or oligarchical kleptocracy) where virtually nothing “trickled down” to the average peasant. It is noted that Marcos became the key figurehead of corrupt government, having a stake in virtually all big businesses in the Philippines, and so he and his wife Imelda, profited greatly from this eco-political graft on a massive scale. As far as Marcos was concerned, beyond his lust for power, his financial, political, and his very existence, were threatened by an array of widespread loosely organized revolutionary forces in a country where anyone who could afford one, carried a firearm. It was common to enter a bar in Angeles City where the first thing encountered instead of a coat check room, would be a gun check room where automatic weapons were checked and stacked waist high. Mr. Marcos did possess one final trump card, his willingness to sign treaties and agreements to keep the American Bases open. Recently declassified documents assert that USAF bombing runs into Viet Nam, although not officially sanctioned, were at times launched from Clark Air Base. And so Marcos was our man in the Philippines. Under martial law, media was government censored, dissidents were silenced, firearms were universally confiscated, the Senate, House, all local government municipalities, and Universities, were shut down. Habeas Corpus was suspended allowing Marcos to imprison leaders of opposition parties. Businessmen associated with opposition party politics were coerced to sell investments to cronies of the Marcos regime, completing Marcos’s total control of the Philippines and its people.
It is interesting that the Philippine people initially welcomed martial law who had grown weary of widespread armed violence, private “tribal” armies beholden to individual politicians, a country awash in untold numbers of firearms held by people who were often all too ready to use them. It did not take long for the Muslims in Mindinao and other southern islands to recognize the new martial law regime for what it was, namely further oppression. Within a few years, these southern islands became actively successionist from the “north”(Luzon), while in the mountains of Luzon, the Huks merged with newly organized communist New People’s Army(NPA) in the mountains of Luzon. Now these revolutionary movements were given a new “raison de’tre” and large subversive anti-Marcos movement began to grow and operate with impunity.
Enter Senator Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino, the most prominent of anti-Marcos dissidents. Aquino’s courage and forthright speeches threatened the Marcos power machine, and so he was arrested the very night of martial law imposition. He remained locked up until 1980, when he was released for heart bypass surgery in the US. After the surgery, he received a professorship at Harvard. However, Aquino heard destiny calling him back to the Philippines to face Marcos. In 1983, he made it onto the Manila airport tarmac and was promptly assassinated. People of the Philippines were outraged, his funeral drew the largest gathering of people in the nation’s history. The Marcos regime was rapidly losing what little support it had left, protesters marched in mass numbers, rich alongside poor, in the Makati financial/business center of Manila on a regular basis for over 2 years.
The Reagan administration recognized the great peril the Philippines was facing and through diplomatic channels, recommended an immediate national election. Although conventional wisdom pointed to yet another Marcos victory due to his absolute government control and power to rig election ballots, this time was different. Ninoy Aquino’s wife, Cory(who returned to Luzon, from the safety of her Boston residence, with her children after her husband’s assassination) brokered a truce with disparate political parties to form one single opposition party to Marcos. People turned up in massive numbers to vote Marcos out of power. But Marcos’s ballot riggers were standing by with artificial votes for Marcos and the legislature declared him the winner. This time however, election corruption was exposed by among other things, women clerks staged a walkout to protest the ballot rigging they witnessed. In quick succession, military reform opposition leaders, about to be arrested, staged an initial coup d’etat. Their stated goals merged with Cory Aquino’s, and the popular uprising began to see public support from the RC clergy. This near total ground swell of popular support of Aquino’s “People Power” movement was further supported by military opposition insurgents. Marcos recognized that without support of his own military, he was doomed politically. So the will of the Philippine people was finally heard and in 1986, Cory Aquino became the next president of the P.I. Ferdinand Marcos was given sanctuary in the US for his and family’s protection. It is noted that Cory Aquino survived 6 coup attempts during her 6 year tenure as president, her protection attributed largely to anti-Marcos loyalists led by her chief of staff, General Ramos. Her legacy included introduction of a new Philippine, more democratic constitution, halted economic downturn, and greatly diminished the power of anti-government insurgents. The P.I. however, remained in poor economic shape.
The next biggest issue was the expiring tenure of US military bases. The US has had an agreement with the Philippines since the end of WW II to operate the bases, with both Filipino civilians and US military(primarily Navy, Marines and Air Force) until 1990. The largest and strategically key bases were the huge Naval dry dock facility at Subic Bay, and the sprawling Air Force facility at Clark Air Base. The bases, and the towns adjacent to the bases, provided income to (100,000+) of Filipinos. But the Philippine people grew tired of the taste of the American “Protectorate” status(despite official independence in 1946), while many pols highlighted the unseemly bar businesses inherent around (all) military bases. American military bases became the whipping boy of most of the P.I.’s problems, an easy target for the wealthy politically controlled press, adding fuel to the media depiction of Filipinos being 2nd class citizens. As mentioned earlier, the general sentiment of the wealthy politicians was P.I. independence without American influence, be it economic, military or political. On the other hand, the common people wanted the jobs and income, but somehow without American hegemony. The wealthy pols(still entrenched) ultimately voted against extending leasing the bases in a wave of nationalism, refusing the US offer of $3B annual rent, and leaving so many people without work. What was to become of the bases was foreshadowed by closure events at Sangley Pt., our base (US NRTF; aka US NAVRADSTA(T), aka Camp O’Donnell Internment Prison), and the AF base adjacent to our base, also a transmitter site, misnomered as O’Donnell AF Facility. These facilities all closed circa 1988 and preceded the decommissioning of Clark and Subic. The final chapter recorded on US NAVRADSTA(T) in 1988 occurred when 2 American civilian contractors tasked with dismantling the base transmitters were gunned down on their way back from the base. Although much of the bases’ infrastructure was meant to be repurposed for civic purposes for the Philippine people, that was largely not meant to be. Gangs were organized by corrupted wealthy so as to methodically strip these bases of all materials not permanently installed. The “looters” were on contract and did not benefit from their deeds aside from the few pesos paid to them for their services. What was left behind was “unlootable”, mere shells of cement block buildings devoid of windows, doors, internal and external infrastructure. As will be described in Section 6, the economic benefit of the base closures actually had a negative economic benefit to the common Filipino, while the rich got richer.
Comprehensive List of References
Culture and Customs of the Philippines(Paul Rodell), 2002
Looted: The Philippines after the Bases(Donald Kirk), 1998
The Philippines(Lucile Davis), 1998
Twilight of the Gods(Ian Toll), 2020