From the S&S archives: Aid to Philippines is backed by Baker

TOKYO — Secretary of State James Baker Tuesday joined Japanese and Filipinos in urging support for a U.S.-inspired international aid package for the Philippines.

Baker, on the first stop of a trip that will take him to Brunei and Poland, sought backing for the Multilateral Assistance initiative, a plan that would give the Philippines $10 billion over five years to heal its battered economy.

THE PLEAS came less than 24 hours before 18 nations and several international organizations, represented at a conference led by the World Bank, were to announce their 1989 financial pledges to the government of Philippine President Corazon Aquino.

Baker said President Bush has asked Congress to approve $1 billion for the aid plan, an average of $200 million a year. That would be in addition to other American aid, and would make the total U.S. commitment to Manila about $650 million for the fiscal year beginning in October.

However, Japan remains Manila's biggest financial backer. Foreign Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzaka told the delegates that it would give the Philippines the equivalent of about $1 billion in fiscal year 1989. That would be about a 10 percent increase over the roughly $900 million given last year. Baker called the proposed aid program "critical to the future of Philippine democracy" and "a concrete expression of the kind of partnership and creative responsibility sharing we see as the basis of a new era in East Asia and the Pacific."

"Accelerating (economic) growth rates since 1986 reached 6.8 percent last year," Baker said. "This growth has come while the Philippine government has responsibly and effectively managed a $28 billion foreign debt burden."

But he added that "enormous problems of poverty and development persist" in the Philippines with nearly half the population living below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus said the Philippines had not come to Tokyo "like a beggar with an empty hand."

He said under the Aquino government, the Philippine economy had improved markedly, inflation was being slowed and the nation was paying off its foreign debt.

The European Community said its aid would roughly triple from the recent annual average of $117 million to about $350 million.