the passing of an activist

[arc@igc.org]

To the recipients of Careerpro
>From Saul Bloom, Arc Ecology
Regarding the passing of a friend and colleague

I'd like to take a moment to mark the passage of a friend and 
colleague in the military toxics issue in the Philippines. Meilard 
Tality, a member of the Board of Directors of the People's Task Force 
for Bases Cleanup died Thursday, October 9th from what appears to be 
heart failure, he was 43. I'm uploading this message because of the 
past traffic on the subject of Philippine base cleanup and I guess I'm 
somewhat unwilling to see my friend go quietly into that long night.

When one strips away the political, organizational, and business 
agendas that can complicate things, at the core, most community folks 
working on base cleanup do so out of a genuine desire and commitment 
to improve their communities and the environment. We work hard, if 
we're effective we leave an anonymous legacy for future generations 
and move on. Sometimes we face great odds. That was certainly the 
case with Meilard and continues to be for the People's Task Force for 
Bases Cleanup.

I met Meilard in November 1995. He had recently relocated to Manila 
from Mindanao, the largest island in southern portion of the 
Philippine archipelago. Meilard had been with an organization called 
GreenPhils which worked on reforestation and the protection of the 
endangered Philippine Eagle. He had just joined the People's Task 
Force For Bases Cleanup we worked together over the course of my next 
three trips to the Philippines, meeting with officials from 
governmental agencies, the Clark Development Corporation and on the 
public release of the United States Working Group For Philippine Bases 
Cleanup (USWG) Technical Committees review of finding presented in the 
Executive Summary of the Environmental Base Line Survey for Subic Bay 
(the Subic Bay Metrop olitan Authority had not released the full EBS).

For those folks unfamiliar with this issue (there may be a few judging 
by some of the past uploads), like many former and current colonies of 
the United States such as Panama and Puerto Rico, the Philippines 
passed into American hands as a result of the Spanish American War in 
1898. Two years after successfully extricating themselves from Spain 
in 1896, the Philippines learned that they were an American spoil of war. 

For their part, Filipinos did not quietly accept the forcible 
annexation by the United States. By 1898 the Philippines had already 
declared independence, successfully undertook what appears to be one 
of the first democratic elections of a President and a national 
assembly in Asian history, and ratified a constitution. The ensuing 
Philippine-American War lasted for several years, lead to the 
deployment of an occupational force of 126,000 U.S. troops and the 
reported death of some 616,000 Filipinos (some Historians give even 
higher estimates) in what some have called America's first 
Vietnam--something left out of most history books today. The famous 
author Mark Twain was just one of the prominent Americans outraged by 
the U.S. occupation of the Philippines and he wrote extensively on the 
ethical implications.

The United States established a number of military facilities in the 
Philippines, the most notable being Clark Air Field and Subic Bay 
Naval Base. These facilities were among the largest of US overseas 
military facilities. Clark for example is only nine square kilometers 
smaller than Singapore. With the exception of the three years the 
Philippines was held by Japan during the Second World War, the United 
States enjoyed uninterrupted and virtually unrestrained control over 
the islands until the late 1950's when authority over the islands was 
passed to a short lived civilian government. The bases remained in US 
hands and the surrounding communities virtual US domains through the 
twenty years of the brutal dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. 

The Marcos regime was a wrenching experience for Filipinos, which was 
made worse by the general perception that the dictatorship had the 
full support of the United States government. A top-secret State 
Department document, since declassified, argued that our bases in the 
Philippines were so essential to American security in the region, that 
the U.S. should keep the Philippines "in hands which it could control" 
even at the expense of "human rights, the raising of living standards, 
and democratization." The U.S. military bases served as training 
grounds for the "counter insurgency" forces that roamed the islands 
regularly "salvaging" (murdering) people assumed to be involved in 
anti-Marcos activities. Many of the current staff and board of the 
People's Task Force For Bases Cleanup suffered mightily at the hands 
of Marcos' goons. One staff member's husband was murdered by a death 
squad operating in the area around Clark Air Base, another was 
arrested, tortured and jailed for two years in Olongopo just outs
ide of Subic.

As a result, after the EDSA or Yellow Revolution that swept Marcos out 
of power, the Philippine Senate refused to continue America's lease on 
the base properties. The two countries were involved in intense 
negotiations over the closure process for the bases, including 
hazardous waste remediation, when Mount Pinatubo erupted providing the 
Bush administration with an opportunity to abandon the facilities 
toxics, UXO's and all.

How contaminated were the bases at the time of closure? According to 
the research of the United States Working Group on Philippine Base 
Cleanup, statements by US officials and the United States 
Congressional General Accounting Office the problem is massive. 
Superfund proportions. Although the Japanese did invade, bomb and 
militarily occupied the country, their contribution to the 
contamination amounts to a fraction of the general problem. Of far 
greater concern is the post war period when the United States really 
ramped up the activities at the bases. 

During the Cold War, the United States military took the bases from 
their pre-World War II sleepy backwater status and turned them into 
forward positioned, top of the line military facilities dedicated to 
halting the sweep of communism in South East Asia and the Pacific. 
Subic Bay maintained and repaired the ships of the Pacific Fleet, 
including its nuclear powered vessels. Heavy bombers, transport 
planes and a wide variety of fighter aircraft thundered out of Clark. 
The maintenance and live firing training that took place on these 
properties gave them the reputation of being the most contaminated of 
US overseas bases. The net result of forty years of these activities 
was the same as it was for our domestic installation. In 1991, in an 
interview with the Los Angeles Times, former DoD cleanup boss David 
Berteau stated that if there was a toxic nightmare out there it was 
probably Subic. 

Nevertheless, after nearly a century of extracting value from the 
Philippines, when it came time to close the bases the United States 
military kept quite and dumped the whole shebang on what was then know 
as the "poor man of Asia." In the opinion of the United States Working 
Group for Philippine Bases Cleanup, the DoD failed to follow its own 
guidance with regard to the completion of environmental reviews, 
remediation of immanent and substantial endagerments to human health 
and the environment, and the transfer of environmental documentation 
to the Philippine government. The US military documents provided to 
the Philippine government reviewed by the USWG were of extremely poor 
quality; in some cases almost useless for developing a response to 
the toxic a nd hazardous waste polluting the bases. 

The Philippine campaign hasn't been easy. Along with the poor reports 
and stonewalling by the US, there was stonewalling by the government 
of Fidel Ramos. Since the closure of the bases and the beginning of 
the Task Force, children have lost limbs scavenging in unmarked firing 
zones, workers have been exposed to unidentified toxic hazards at 
construction sites within the Free Zones and the Philippines has had 
to take loans to hire consultants to identify what was known from the 
get go. As a result of the pressure generated by the People's Task 
Force, both the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority and the Clark 
Development Corporation have had to publicly acknowledge some contamination. 

As individuals involved with the cleanup of military bases in the 
U.S., I'd like us to think back fifteen years ago. When most 
environmental surveys of U.S. domestic military facilities were 
classified and exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, when there 
was very limited public involvement requirements in administrative 
cleanup and redevelopment processes. Add to that a situation where 
special economic zones are created with major exemptions to 
governmental oversight and where raising your voice can still get you 
killed. That is the situation underwhich the People's Task Force works 
and the threat that Meilard and all of his colleagues have had to 
become accustomed to.

Working with Meilard was a pleasure. Easy going, he loved to joke but 
also had a keen sense of justice and was deeply concerned about the 
toxic legacy our country has abandoned in the Philippines. When I 
last saw Meilard he was well on his way to becoming a media 
personality in the communities around Clark. He was frequently on the 
radio and in the press. He was attempting to open lines of 
communications with the Clark Development Corporation at the same time 
he was being critical about their lack of transparency around the 
toxic contamination of the property. But his heart was also becoming 
increasingly fragile. By the end of my visit to the Philippines last 
April, he was having a hard time climbing a few flights of stairs. 
During my visit in August I learned that he had taken ill while 
participating in a conference on nuclear issues in Japan. 

James Webb a former Secretary of the Navy under Ronald Reagan 
complained in a recent edition of Parade Magazine that the Philippines 
should recognize all that the United States has done for it and 
quickly sign status of forces and access and cross servicing 
agreements that will allow our military once again to use the island 
nation as a base for operations. I know Meilard would disagree with 
that sentiment. He would say -- What kind of friend abandons toxic 
and hazardous waste in a friend's back yard and makes aid with cleanup 
conditional on the signing of military agreements. He would say if 
the United States was a friend of the Filipino people, it would at 
least make good on its own internal policies with regard to 
environmental conditions reports for overseas closure sites, if it was 
a true friend America would take responsibility for the cleanup. 

Meilard Tality is survived by his wife and four children. 
Contributions toward the family's recovery can be made. Checks as 
small as $5 would make a big difference in the Philippines. If you'd 
like to make a donation please make your checks payable to Meilard 
Tality Fund c/o Arc Ecology. Our address is 833 Market Street, Suite 
1107, San Francisco, CA 94103. The names and well wishes of all of 
the contributors will be forwarded to the family. Thank you.