U.S., Manila Disagree on Impact of Snag on Bases

MANILA —  U.S. and Philippine officials disagreed Tuesday on the seriousness of the suspension of negotiations on the future of the two big U.S. bases in the country.

A Philippine official described the suspension as “very, very serious.” He said the two sides are “so far apart on the money issue that it didn’t pay to keep on talking.”

But U.S. negotiators appeared to regard the break in the talks as little more than a temporary delay.

The U.S. negotiating team, headed by Ambassador Nicholas Platt, issued a statement saying: “We do not consider the talks suspended. As has happened several times in the past, there has been a temporary break in the talks. We expect to resume the talks shortly. Such temporary breaks occur from time to time, particularly when one side needs time to consider a proposal from the other.”

Still, it was the worst setback in the talks since representatives of the two governments began meeting here four months ago in an effort to decide the future of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base. The present agreement expires in 1991.

‘Don’t Think We Can Resume’

Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus, who heads the Philippine negotiating team, told reporters after briefing President Corazon Aquino that “right now our positions are so far apart, I don’t think we can resume.”

Aquino, he said, “understands that this is a part of the negotiating experience, (and) I think she realizes that our position is a reasonable one and we should stick by it.”

The Philippine negotiators issued a statement saying “there was substantial disagreement on the compensation issue,” and Philippine sources indicated later that the two sides are hundreds of millions of dollars apart.

One of the Philippine negotiators, Leonides Caday, said the amount offered “was far, far below what we were demanding.” Other Philippine sources said the United States offered about $1 billion in cash and liberalized trade agreements but that the Philippines had hoped to receive about three times that much.

Under the present agreement, signed in 1983, the United States gives the Philippines an average of $180 million a year in economic and military aid.

A ‘Genuine Offer’

Some U.S. sources said privately that the situation is more serious than the official U.S. statement suggests. They said they had made “a genuine offer” on compensation and that the Filipinos had rejected it outright.

Still, at least one Philippine official agreed with the official U.S. position on the state of the talks. Ramon Mitra, speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, said the suspension was probably just a negotiating ploy.

“It is just part of the dance,” he said. “I am still confident there will be an agreement.”

The two bases, both situated north of Manila, contribute substantially to the Philippine economy, providing employment for more than 60,000 Filipinos.

Compensation appears to be the only issue standing in the way of agreement. Sources close to the talks said that the one other issue that has been raised--a provision in the Philippine constitution that bans nuclear weapons and nuclear-powered vessels from this island nation--had been resolved in the past few days. They said the Philippine negotiators accepted a compromise that will permit visits by nuclear-powered ships at least until 1991, when the current agreement expires.