The CIA In Manila

Covert Operations and the CIA's Hidden

History in the Philippines

By Roland G. Simbulan,
Convenor/Coordinator, Manila Studies
Program
University of the Philippines
(Lecture at the University of the Philippines-
Manila, Rizal Hall, Padre Faura, Manila, August
18, 2000.)

For a long time, Manila has been the main

station, if not the regional headquarters, of
the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for
Southeast Asia. This is perhaps so because
the Philippines have always been regarded as a
stronghold of US imperial power in Asia. Since
the Americanized Filipinos were under the
spell of American culture, they were easy to
recruit without realizing they were committing
treason to their own people and country. And
from the beginning of the 20th century to 1992,
there were the US military bases, the mighty
symbols and infrastructure of American power.

CIA human intelligence assets in Manila are said

to have provided vital information at crucial
times. According to declassified documents
under the Freedom of Information Act, on Sept.
17, 1972, a CIA asset in the Philippines who
was in the inner circle of Marcos informed the
CIA station in Manila that Ferdinand Marcos was
planning to proclaim martial law on Sept.
21,1972. The CIA station in Manila was also
provided in advance a copy of Proclamation
1081--the proclamation that declared martial
law in the country--and a list of the
individuals whom Marcos planned to arrest
and imprison upon the declaration of military
rule.

I would like to mention --without going into any

conclusions--that, so accurate was the CIA's
assessment about the Sept. 21, 1972
declaration of martial rule that it boosted the
prestige of the CIA station in Manila. Upon his
retirement a few years later, the CIA
headquarters in Langley, Virginia--a tribute that
is said to be very rarely given to any retiring
ambassador, honored Henry Byroade, the
American ambassador to Manila when martial
law was declared. Also, in 1982, the CIA was
able to verify from a high-ranking Philippine
immigration officer the names of the two doctors
who visited the Philippines to treat Marcos for
kidney failure, giving the CIA a clear picture of
Marcos's health problems.(Richelson, 1999).

It is important to expose US imperialism's

clandestine apparatus in the Philippines. If
the activities of this sinister agency are not
meticulously documented, there is a tendency
to mythologize, or even Hollywood-ize, its
notoriety and crimes against the Filipino
people and Philippine national sovereignty.
The CIA is the covert overseas intelligence
agency of the United States government and is
likewise an "action-oriented " vehicle of
American foreign and military policy. The 1975
Church Committee Report of the US
congressional investigations into the CIA's
covert activities abroad revealed how countless
foreign governments were overthrown by the
CIA; how the CIA instigated a military coup
d'etat and assassinated foreign political
leaders like Chilean President Salvador
Allende, who merely tried to safeguard the
interests of their own country; and how "special
ops" and paramilitary campaigns contributed to
the death, directly or indirectly, of millions of
people, as a result of those actions.

The 1974-75 US congressional investigations

also uncovered CIA intervention in the domestic
politics of target countries--from the overthrow of
governments, attempted assassinations, to
subsidies and financial support for the media,
political parties, trade unions, universities and
business associations--all designed "to
clandestinely influence foreign governments,
events, organizations or persons in support of
US foreign policy." (Robinson, 1996; Richelson,
1999). The CIA has gone beyond its original
mission of gathering intelligence and was
conducting Mafia-type operations not only in its
own territory but also against foreign
governments and their leaders.

Doing covert action that undermines Philippine

national sovereignty and genuine democracy in
order to prop up the tiny pro-US oligarchical
minority that has cornered most of the wealth in
their poor country is what the CIA is all about
and is the real reason for its existence. It is no
longer just the collection and analysis of foreign
intelligence, which is officially its mandate under
the US National Security Act of 1947 that
created the CIA.

The CIA in the Philippines has engaged in

countless covert operations for intervention
and dirty tricks particularly in Philippine
domestic politics. On top of all this is the US
diplomatic mission, especially the political
section that is a favorite cover for many CIA
operatives. CIA front companies also provide an
additional but convenient layer of cover for
operatives assigned overseas. In general,
wherever you find US big business interests
(like Coca-Cola, Ford, Citicorp, United Fruit,
Nike, etc.), you also find a very active CIA.
But the covers often used are diversified.

Desmond Fitzgerald, for instance, a former CIA

chief of station in Manila was said to have
fronted as a legitimate businessman of an
American multinational company. Joseph
Smith, a top CIA agent assigned to the
Philippines in the early 1960s, posed as a
"civilian employee" of the Clark Airforce Base's
13th Air Force Southeast Asia Regional Survey
Unit .On the other hand, CIA operative Gabriel
Kaplan's initial cover was really more "civilian"--
with the CIA-created Asia Foundation
(formerly the Committee for a Free Asia), then
later as resident director of another CIA creation,
the COMPADRE both of which we shall be
dealing with more extensively later.

On the other hand, CIA operative David

Sternberg fronted as a foreign correspondent
for an American newspaper based in Boston,
the Christian Science Monitor, when he
assisted Gabriel Kaplan in managing the
presidential campaign of Ramon Magsaysay in
the '50s.

The Agency's assets and technical infrastructure

in Manila have been drastically affected by the
withdrawal of the bases by 1992 because,
before this, the CIA operated jointly with the
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) major
listening posts into most of Indochina and
southern China. The joint CIA/DIA structure
called the Strategic Warning Staff is
headquartered in the US Department of Defense
(Pentagon) and operated a number of similar
posts as the one in Manila. The Manila station
includes very sizeable logistical capabilities for a
wide range of clandestine operations against
Asian governments.

The loss of the bases in the Philippines was a

tremendous blow to the CIA's Asian
infrastructure, if not a major setback. From the
mid-50s, the US bases in the Philippines served
as operational headquarters for "Operation
Brotherhood" which operated in Indochina
under the direct supervision of the CIA's Col.
Edward Lansdale and Lucien Conien, and it
involved several Filipinos who were recruited
and trained by the CIA. Lansdale was the classic
CIA operative in Southeast Asia who was
romanticized in Graham Greene's novel, The
Quiet American. Lansdale was even appointed
by former President Ramon Magsaysay as his
"military adviser" but was, in fact, his
speechwriter as well, who determined
Magsaysay's foreign and military policy. So
successful was the CIA in pulling the strings thru
Lansdale that in 1954, a high-level US
committee reported that, "American policy in
Southeast Asia was most effectively
represented in the Philippines, where any
expanded program of Western influence may
best be launched."

Examples of such programs were the Freedom

Company of the Philippines, Eastern
Construction Co. and "Operation
Brotherhood," which provided "a mechanism to
permit the deployment of Filipino personnel in
other Asian countries, for unconventional
operations covertly supported by the
Philippines." (Shalom, 1986). The CIA also
actively used Philippine territory, particularly
Clark Air Base, for the training and launching of
operatives and logistics in the late 1950s, where
the US covertly supported dissident
Indonesian colonels in the failed armed
overthrow of Indonesian President Sukarno.
The CIA then established supply, training and
logistical bases on several islands in the
Philippines, including an airstrip in the Tawi-Tawi
Island of Sanga-Sanga. The CIA from Philippine
territory to give direct assistance to Indonesian
military rebel groups attempting to overthrow
Indonesian President Sukarno in the late 1950s
actively used a CIA-owned proprietary company,
the Civil Air Transport.
Manila was also the center of operations for the
Trans-Asiatic Airlines Inc., a CIA outfit
operating along the Burma-China border against
the People's Republic of China. Using the Trans-
Asiatic Airlines Inc. as a front company, the CIA
recruited for this operation in the early 1950s
several Filipino aviators who were World War II
veterans, including operatives of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines' Military Intelligence
Service (MIS) who were still in active service.

In his memoirs, former Philippine Ambassador to

Burma Narciso G. Reyes narrates that one of
these Filipino "undercover" MIS agents posed as
the labor attaché at the Philippine embassy in
Rangoon even before this was formally
established. The Filipino CIA undercover agent
was also reporting to the American ambassador
to Burma from whom he was also getting paid!
(Reyes, 1995).

Side by side with CIA proprietary companies

Civil Air Transport, Sea Supply Co. and
Western Enterprises Co., the agency used
Trans-Asiatic Airlines Inc. in an attempt to
invade the People's Republic of China in the
early 1950s, using the mercenary Chinese
warlord Gen. Li Mi as leader of the invasion
force. After a few skirmishes with the People's
Liberation Army (PLA), Gen. Li Mi later on
"retired" and pocketed the US financial and
military assistance for an invasion against China
and concentrated on the lucrative opium trade
along the Burmese-Thai border.

US military advisers of the Joint US Military

Advisory Group (JUSMAG) and the CIA station
in Manila designed and led the bloody
suppression of the nationalist Hukbong
Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB) that was
vehemently opposed to the post-war Parity
Rights amendment and the onerous military
agreements with the United States. The CIA's
success in crushing the peasant-based Huk
rebellion in the 1950s made this operation the
model for future counterinsurgency operations in
Vietnam and Latin America. Colonel Lansdale
and his Filipino sidekick, Col. Napoleon
Valeriano were later to use their counterguerrilla
experience in the Philippines for training covert
operatives in Vietnam and in the US-
administered School of the Americas, which
trained counterguerrilla assassins for Latin
America. Thus, the Philippines had become
the CIA's prototype in successful covert
operations and psychological warfare.

After his stint in the Philippines using

propaganda, psywar and deception against the
Huk movement, Lansdale was then assigned in
Vietnam to wage military, political and
psychological warfare. It was Lansdale's view
that the tactics that he used to solve the
problem in the Philippines were applicable to
Vietnam. He was wrong. In 1975, after two
decades of protracted warfare, the Vietnamese
people defeated the strongest superpower on
earth.

The CIA's actions and activities in its Manila

station have never been limited to information
gathering. Information gathering is but a part of
an offensive strategy to attack, neutralize and
undermine any organization, institution,
personality or activity they consider a danger to
the stability and power of the United States. The
late Senator Claro M. Recto was believed to
have been a victim of the CIA's dirty tricks
department because of his staunch crusade
against the US military bases in the Philippines.
It is now a well-documented fact that General
Ralph B. Lovett, then the CIA station chief in
Manila and the US ambassador, Admiral
Raymond A. Spruance, had discussed a plan
to assassinate Recto using a vial of poison.
A few years later, Recto was to die mysteriously
of heart attack (though he had no known heart
ailment) in Rome after an appointment with two
Caucasians in business suits. Before this, the
CIA had made every effort to assure the defeat
of Recto in the 1957 presidential election
wherein the CIA manufactured and distributed
defective condoms with a label that said,
"Courtesy of Claro M. Recto--the People's
Friend." Could it be that Recto was a victim of
the CIA's covert operations, or what they call
"executive action" against those perceived as
dangerous enemies of the United States?

It was also during the time of Recto and the

Huks that the CIA covertly sponsored the
Security Training Center as a
"countersubversion, counterguerrilla and
psychological warfare school" on the outskirts of
Manila. CIA funds concentrated on the sensitive
area of "rural development" and funds were
channeled to the National Movement for Free
Elections' (Namfrel) community centers, the
Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement
(PRRM) and a rural development project called
Committee for Philippine Action in
Development, Reconstruction and Education
(COMPADRE) thru CIA fronts and conduits like
the Catherwood Foundation and the
"Committee for a Free Asia (CFA), later
renamed the Asia Foundation." (Shalom,
1986).

In the late 1980s, the CIA assigned Vietnam

veteran U.S. General John Singlaub to
organize anti-communist vigilante groups all
over the country for mass terror, particularly as
part of the Philippine government's "total war
policy" against people's movements. General
Singlaub posed as an American "treasure
hunter" and even secured all the necessary
official permits for treasure hunting in the
Philippines. Another operative active in the "total
war" operations in the Philippines was Vietnam
counterinsurgency specialist Col. James Rowe,
Joint US Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG)
adviser, whose cover was blown off when he
was ambushed in 1989 by urban guerrillas of the
New People's Army in Timog Avenue, Quezon
City. Rowe was clandestinely involved in the
organization of anti-communist death
squads like Alsa Masa and vigilante groups
patterned after "Operation Phoenix" in
Vietnam, which had the objective of eliminating
legal and semi-legal mass activists and their
political sympathizers that constituted the
political infrastructure of the insurgency
movement.

The CIA lost its huge telecommunications

installation at Clark Air Base--the Regional
Relay Station when the Philippine Senate
rejected on Sept. 16, 1991, the proposed treaty
for the bases' renewal. Before 1970, according
to a former CIA operative, the sprawling Subic
Naval Base was the site of a China operations
group of the CIA and "the agency even
constructed 100 expensive modern homes, a
large two-story office building and a big
warehouse at Subic Bay." (Smith, 1976)

There is, however, a vital covert installation that

the CIA was able to retain and maintain: the
"Regional Service Center" (RSC). Located
along Roxas Boulevard in Manila at the Seafront
Compound about a mile south from the US
Embassy, the RSC fronts as a facility of the
United States Information Service (USIS),
formerly called the US International
Communications Agency. This ultra-modern
printing facility functions as a secret CIA
propaganda plant. It has the ability to produce
large quantities of high-quality color offset
magazines, posters, leaflets and the like in at
least 14 Asian languages.

During the Vietnam War, the RSC was

ceaselessly involved in economic sabotage
against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam
(DRV) or North Vietnam. The RSC was
involved in counterfeiting North Vietnamese
currency, which were airdropped all over the
DRV to sabotage the economy and weaken the
country's resistance. The CIA's Technical
Services Division maintains close liaison with
the RSC, which still actively operates within the
Seafront Compound along Roxas Boulevard.
The post-Vietnam War and later on, the post-
bases era has only increased the importance of
Manila as a major listening post and regional
headquarters of the Agency.

A former junior case officer of the CIA, Janine

Brookner, who was stationed in Manila
described the capital city of the Philippines
as "a wild place" for CIA operatives who
spent a lot of time in bars, sex shows and
brothels. This was because, according to her,
the standard CIA procedure for recruiting targets
was to "get him drunk, get him laid, and then get
him on the Agency's dole." Brookner was an
attractive but determined blonde who claimed to
have developed assets in both the government
and the Communist Party during her assignment
to the Philippines. Brookner was also a very
productive recruiter who, as a handler of
important assets and as a CIA case officer,
claims to be able to make her targets confess
everything. "You take care of them," Brookner
recalls, "and they tell you their fears and
nightmares...I'm good at people depending on
me." In fact, her targets, especially high-ranking
Philippine government officials, often
propositioned her. (Starobin, 1997)

Cultural Fronts

The CIA has long utilized in the Philippines

sophisticated or subtle means for
clandestine propaganda, such as the
manipulation of trade unions and cultural
organizations, rather than heavy-handed
activities such as paramilitary operations,
political assassinations and coups as they had
done extensively in Africa, Latin America and
Vietnam. During my interview in 1996 with
Ralph McGehee, a former CIA agent, and other
former CIA operatives assigned to the Manila
station, I was told that the CIA had many
unheralded successes in the Philippines such as
the manipulation of the trade union movement
through the Asian-American Free Labor
Institute (AAFLI) and through funds which were
channeled thru the USAID, Asia Foundation
and National Endowment for Democracy.

In a recent article in the Journal of

Contemporary Asia, American sociologist
James Petras describes how progressive non-
government organizations can be neutralized, if
not coopted, thru US government, big business-
backed funding agencies or CIA fronts and
conduits masquerading as foundations. The
purpose, according to Petras, is "to mystify
and deflect discontent away from direct
attacks on the corporate/banking power
structure and profits toward local micro-
projects ...that avoids class analysis of
imperialism and capitalist exploitation." Neo-
liberalism today, according to Petras,
encourages NGOs to "emphasize projects, not
movements; they 'mobilize' people to produce at
the margins, not to struggle to control the means
of production and wealth; they focus on the
technical financial aspects of projects not on
structural conditions that shape the everyday
lives of people." While using the language of the
Left such as "people empowerment," "gender
equality," "sustainable development" etc., these
NGOs funded by USAID, the National
Endowment for Democracy (NED), Asia
Foundation, etc. have become linked to a
framework of collaboration with donors and even
with government agencies with whom they have
partnerships that subordinate activity to
nonconfrontational politics, rather than militant
mass mobilization. (Petras, 1999)

It must be emphasized that the US places high

premium on the ideological legitimation of its
continuing neo-colonial domination over the
Philippines and, as such, depends heavily on
US-financed and US-sponsored institutions,
especially on the ideological front. Thus, grants
are generously poured in by such agencies like
USAID, NED, Asia Foundation and the big
business-sponsored Ford Foundation. The
objective is to constantly lure and lull the
masses into the elite-dominated electoral
process, thus legitimizing the neo-liberal
economic system and its political apparatus,
producing a fragile social peace and a
"peaceful" mechanism for competition among
the Filipino elite and oligarchy. In his book on
French colonialism in Algeria titled, The
Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon wrote:

"Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding

a people in its grip, and emptying the native's
brain of all form and content. By a kind of
perverted logic, it turns to the past of the people,
and distorts, disfigures and destroys it."

One of the most critical moments of the CIA

station in Manila was the immediate post-
Marcos years when they tried to dissociate
US links with the Marcoses and politically
influence the contours of the post-Marcos
era. Financial, technical and political support for
the pro-US "agents of influence" assured the
dominance of pro-US local elites and institutions
as a counterweight to the progressive anti-
imperialist, anti-Marcos forces that threatened to
define and restructure the architecture of the
post-Marcos neo-colonial regime.

USAID was directed to grant the Trade Union

Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) with a
generous financing so it could formulate a
position paper on an economic program
anchored on "the partnership between labor and
capital." USAID even temporarily set up an
agrarian reform office, working closely at TUCP
offices. Political analysts of the CIA and
USAID wanted to design an agrarian reform
program that would not disrupt the agro-
export sector and one which could be
synchronized with the counterinsurgency
program and defuse peasant unrest. The CIA
and US military advisers also wanted a deeper
role in the design and command of
counterinsurgency. These funds were
supplemented by the so-called "democracy
promotion" initiatives of the NED which poured
in heavy funding for TUCP, Namfrel, the
Women's Movement for the Nurturing of
Democracy (KABATID) and the Philippine
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCCI).
The NED gave a total of $9 million from 1984-
1990 to these institutions and organizations.
Following the ouster of Marcos, the US set
about to transform the "new" Armed Forces of
the Philippines into an effective
counterinsurgency force that would integrate
military, political, economic and social initiatives,
including broad "civic action" campaigns,
psychological operations, military aid and
training. It was a massive comeback of the
low-intensity conflict years of the
Magsaysay-Lansdale era! Between 1987-
1990, Washington reportedly authorized
stepped-up clandestine CIA operations against
the Left in the Philippines, including a $10 million
allocation to the AFP for enhanced intelligence-
gathering operations. There was also an
increase in the number of CIA personnel, from
115 to 127, mostly attached as "diplomats" to
the US embassy in Manila. (Oltman and
Bernstein, 1992)

In general, US military and economic aids are

used quite effectively and they remain key
elements of US policy in the Philippines. The
CIA station handles political aid and political
matters. This means, according to the CIA's
Intelligence Memorandum on the 1965
Philippine presidential elections for instance,
assuring that the victorious national
candidates who are acceptable to the US
should be "western-oriented and pledge to
continue close and equitable relations with
the US and the West on matters of mutual
interest." (Bonner, 1987) The CIA station also
conducts widespread covert operations, among
them: stage-managed national elections to
assure preferred US outcome; payoffs to
government officials under the guise of grants;
financing for favored business and civic groups
and pro-US propaganda campaigns among the
population; the supply of intelligence information
on activists and dissidents to the Armed Forces
of the Philippines and so on. (Robinson, 1996)

Among the most prominent CIA fronts in Manila

is the Asia Foundation with offices at
Magallanes Village, Makati. According to a
former US State Department bureaucrat William
Blum in a recent book, the "Asia Foundation
is the principal CIA front" and funding conduit
in Asia. The Asia Foundation funds and supports
known anti-communist groups or influential
personalities, i.e. academics, journalists, local
officials, etc. and institutions. (Blum, 1999)
According to the former executive assistant to
the CIA's Deputy Director for Operations Victor
Marchetti in his book, The CIA and the Cult of
Intelligence, the Asia Foundation had the
objective "to disseminate throughout Asia a
negative vision of Mainland China, North
Vietnam, and North Korea." (Marchetti and
Marks, 1980 edition). New York Times
investigative journalist Raymond Bonner has
also identified the Asia Foundation as "a CIA
creation" and "front" in one of his books,
Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and
the Making of American Policy (1987). My
interviews with former CIA operatives in the
Philippines in 1996 confirm the active use of this
foundation for the "Agency."

But the most credible and authoritative source

that I have come across identifying the Asia
Foundation as a CIA front and conduit is
Marchetti's book where the CIA-Asia Foundation
link is defined in no uncertain terms:

"Another organization heavily subsidized by

the CIA was the Asia Foundation.
Established by the agency (CIA) in 1956, with
a carefully chosen board of directors, the
foundation was designed to promote academic
and private interest in the East. It sponsored
scholarly research, supported conferences and
symposia, and ran academic exchange
programs, a CIA subsidy that reached $88
million dollars a year. While most of the
foundation's activities were legitimate, the CIA
also used it...to recruit foreign agents and
new officers. Although the foundation often
served as a cover for clandestine operations, its
main purpose was to promote the spread of
ideas which were anti-communist and pro-
American--sometimes subtly and
stridently...Designed--and justified at budget
time--as an overseas propaganda operation, the
Asia Foundation also was regularly guilty of
propagandizing the American people with
agency views on Asia. The Agency's
connection with the Asia Foundation came to
light just after the 1967 exposure of CIA
subsidies to the (American) National Student
Association. The foundation clearly was one of
the organizations that the CIA was banned from
financing and, under the recommendations of
the Katzenbach committee, the decision was
made to end CIA funding. A complete cut-off
after 1967, however, would have forced the
foundation to shut down, so the agency made it
the beneficiary of a large 'severance payment' in
order to give it a couple of years to develop
alternative sources of funding. Assuming the
CIA has not resumed covert funding, the Asia
Foundation has apparently made itself self-
sufficient now.... during the 1960s, the CIA
developed proprietary companies for use in
propaganda operations. These proprietaries are
more compact proprietaries and more covert
than the now exposed fronts like Asia
Foundation and Radio Free Europe."
(Marchetti and Marks, pp.157-158)

The CIA-linked Asia Foundation has long been

active in the Philippines. It has generously
funded academic seminars, researches, study
tours, and conferences in most of the leading
Philippine universities, most especially among
many colleagues and programs at the University
of the Philippines (UP).

You name it; they have their fingers stuck into it!
Many nongovernmental organizations,
journalists, local governments and civic
organizations have had their projects funded by
Asia Foundation. This is what makes it strategic
and well-placed, thus naturally, a matter of great
concern and alarm to friends and colleagues in
both the academe and the NGO sector who may
be very upset by this information on the origins
and CIA links of the Asia Foundation. But I did
not invent this issue about the CIA-created Asia
Foundation. I merely documented the previous
testimonies from mostly open sources. It is part
of the CIA's history in this country, which I have
documented from the accounts of former CIA
agents and operatives. Many recipients of Asia
Foundation grants as well as the Filipino
staff of the Asia Foundation in Manila may
not even be aware of its notorious history.
But now we know a little better.

It is important to note that in 1961, the chief of

the CIA's Covert Action Staff wrote that books
were "the most important weapon of strategic
propaganda." Tens of thousands of books have
been produced, subsidized or sponsored by the
CIA and its conduits such as the Asia
Foundation in support of US foreign and military
policy.

Project Echelon

Together with the National Security Agency, the

CIA also maintains "Project Echelon," the most
sophisticated and the most technologically
advanced eavesdropping system that has ever
been devised. Through a relay system of
satellites and spook stations in Australia, New
Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada and United
States, the US intelligence system is able to
intercept all telephone, fax, e-mail, Internet
and cellphone transmissions worldwide. Its
nerve center is located at Fort Meade in
Maryland where the NSA maintains its
headquarters. This has grave implications for
both our public and private security.

The National Security Agency (NSA) of the

United States has developed a global
surveillance system, Echelon, which is a
powerful electronic net operated by super-
computers that intercept, monitor and process
all phone, fax, e-mail and modem signals. The
European Parliament in a 1998 report entitled,
"An Appraisal of Technologies of Political
Control" has listed serious concerns and has
recommended an intensive investigation of US-
NSA operations. The NSA Echelon system
provides awesome potential for abuse against
civilian targets and governments worldwide,
even against allies of the United States.

It can be recalled that under the 1999 Visiting

Forces Agreement (VFA), the coverage for
special privileges and criminal immunity
includes not only US armed forces personnel
but also "civilian personnel who are
employed by the US armed forces and who
are accompanying the US armed forces."
These US "civilians" include technicians of the
secretive US National Security Agency, which,
during the existence of the US bases here,
operated the spy communications facilities at
Clark, Subic and Camp John Hay, among
others. (Simbulan, 1985) All private citizens' and
government communications are intercepted
and monitored by the Echelon System.

According to Nicky Hager's book, Secret

Power (1986) which deals with the international
electronic spy network, the US has not only
been using its NSA Echelon system to collect
political, military and economic intelligence
against its enemies, but it also targets its own
allies. According to Hager:

"...there is extensive interception of the ASEAN

countries, including the Philippines.... ASEAN
meetings receive special attention with both
public and private communications of these
countries being intercepted to reveal the topics
discussed, positions being taken and policy
being considered."

Through the Visiting Forces Agreement

(VFA), the US plans to fully restore its
Echelon system in the Philippines, which was
greatly interrupted by the pullout of US military
facilities, and bases in 1992. The CIA heavily
relies on the Echelon Project for its
technologically advanced Signal Intelligence or
SIGNIT, which is managed by the US National
Security Agency (NSA).

Conclusion

Every CIA station is virtually an infrastructure for

political, military, cultural and even economic
intervention. In the Philippines, the CIA has
not only functioned as a listening post but
has been actively used to engage in covert
operations, sabotage and political
intervention to undermine Philippine
sovereignty and self-determined national
policies. Former CIA operatives in the
Philippines confirm the use of official "diplomatic
covers," especially in the political section of the
US Embassy where they are given secure
communications, protected files and diplomatic
immunity. They have also used "non-official
covers," disguised as businessmen in US firms.
Covers under the guise of air force personnel or
US naval are now minimal after the US bases
and military facilities in the Philippines were
dismantled. But as we can now see, the CIA has
long been operating with virtual impunity and
has always gotten away with its deep
involvement in Philippine domestic affairs. Shall
we allow this continued intervention in
Philippine political and economic life?

Bibliography

Books

• Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military

and CIA Interventions Since World War
II. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage
Press, 1995.
 • Hager, Nicky. Secret Power. New
Zealand: Craig Porton Publishing, 1996.
• McGehee, Ralph. Deadly Deceits: My
25 years in the CIA. New York: Sheridan
Square Publications, 1983.
• Reyes, Narciso G. Memories of
Diplomacy: A Life in the Philippine
Foreign Service. Pasig City: Anvil
Publishing Inc., 1995.
• Richelson, Jeffrey T. The US
Intelligence Community. Boulder,
Colorado: Westview Press, 1999.
• Robinson, William I. Promoting
Polyarchy: Globalization, US
Intervention and Hegemony. Great
Britain: Cambridge University Press,
1996.
• Shalom, Stephen. The United States
and the Philippines: A Study of Neo-
colonialism. Quezon City: New Day
Publishers, 1986.
• Simbulan, Roland. The Bases of Our
Insecurity: A Study of the US Military
Bases in the Philippines. Quezon City:
Balai Foundation, 1983.
• Smith, Joseph Burkholder. Portrait of a
Cold Warrior. Toronto: Longman
Canada, Ltd., 1976.

Articles

• Petras, James. "NGOs in the Service of

Imperialism," Journal of Contemporary
Asia. Vol. 29, No. 4 (1999).
• Oltman J. and Bernstein, R. "Counter-
insurgency in the Philippines," Covert
Action Information Bulletin. No. 4, 1992,
pp. 18-21
• Starobin, Paul. "Agent Provocateur,"
George Magazine. Oct. 1997, pp.86-91.

Interviews

• Ralph McGehee, former CIA operative

assigned to the Philippines, Vietnam
and Thailand; Herndon, Virginia, April-
May 1996.
• Interviews with former CIA operatives in
the Philippines at McLean and Herndon,
Virginia, April-May 1996.

Highly Recommended Websites:

• CIABASE (use alltheweb.com or
dogpile.com as search engines)
• http://www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
• http://www.pir.org (click Freedom of
Information Act documents)
• http://www.boondocksnet.com (click
U.S. as a World Power)
• http://www.Heavens-above.com (for
U.S. spy satellites)
• http://www.dtic.mil/defenselink/ (U.S.
Department of Defense)
• http://www.Nuclear Files.org (FOIA
documents on nuclear issues)
• http://www.odci.gov (the CIA's World
Factbook)
• http://www.bullatomsci.org