Catching the first rays of the Philippine sun, we pause in the high cogon grass. Inday chuckles softly. "There it is, the rough road. The other side's the base."
One of Inday's neighbors who has joined our furtive mission gives the "all-clear," and we scurry across the rough road and set foot on the backwoods perimeter of the largest American military base in the western Pacific, the Subic Naval Base.
Inday pauses again, absorbing all stimuli. Clad in hiking pants, her hair tied back in a bandanna, this woman exudes the air of a savvy guerrilla. She is armed only with an empty rice sack.
"Down!" Inday orders instinctively. Only after we're thoroughly hidden in the high grass for 20 seconds do I hear it: a jeep approaching on the rough road. We are motionless as the jeep passes just meters from our hiding place.
"An American Marine," Inday reports. "But this one's not after us. He's probably driving up to the radar station. Remember, when we proceed, if anyone gets caught by a Marine, give no names or information about the others."
What was our clandestine mission?
Let's code name it "Operation Scavenger." I was joining what could possibly rank as one of the world's largest underground ecological recycling operations. Every day (or night) up to 1,000 persons sneak onto the U.S. Subic Naval Base in the Philippines to salvage junk from the American refuse dump. At an estimated recovery rate of 20 pesos (U.S. $3.50) each, these nimble recyclers may save $3,000 worth of goods per day from being buried forever by the dump's bulldozer.
But the American military authorities do not recognize these people of the nearby Cabalan barrio as environmental caretakers. Indeed, U.S. Marine guards and their Filipino counterparts hunt these "scavengers" daily in an attempt to apprehend them. If caught, the villagers will be taken into the base, booked for trespassing, and turned over to the Philippine police. Sometimes the police will release them, especially the women and children, after several hours. Sometimes the scavengers will be imprisoned for a day, or for multiple offenders, perhaps a week or a month.
Nor, in fact, would it occur to the people of Cabalan to think of themselves as guardians of the ecological order. Their motivation is more immediate: survival for their families. Income for many rural Philippine families is very low. And the 700 families of Cabalan live on untillable hillsides. What level farmland exists in the region lies within the 36,000 acres controlled by the U.S. Navy, inaccessible to the farmers. The base also denies many coastal waters to fishing. Hence, for the people of Cabalan, the American dump is the leading source of income.
Inday and her son, Richard Lawrence, have lived in Cabalan for seven years. Inday was born 39 years ago in the impoverished central islands of the Philippines. Looking for work, she had 12 years ago come to Olongapo, the nearby city that caters to the appetites of American sailors who come and go from the Subic Bay.
During the Vietnam War, Olongapo became a famous "rest and relaxation" center for American troops. Even today, about 3,000 to 13,000 U.S. troops, depending on how many ships are in port, enter Olongapo city every day. The streets of Olongapo are lined with night club after night club after bar after disco after bar after souvenir shop after night club. The number-one health problem of the city is venereal disease; 500 to 600 women line up every morning at the city clinic for their fortnightly check-ups.
During her years in Olongapo, Inday had a relationship with an American soldier who some months later was sent back to Vietnam. Inday gave birth to Richard Lawrence, now a handsome lad of 8 with dark curly hair and quick mischievous eyes.
"The father used to send me money to support Richard," Inday told me the day before our scavenging foray. "Then one day I got a letter from his mother saying that he had been killed in Vietnam. Soon after, I moved out here to Cabalan barrio. I didn't want Richard to grow up among all the clubs and bars. I want my son to have a good life. That's why I go to the dump every day. To provide for Richard."
Now, the following morning, we are pushing our way onward through the deserted property of the base toward the dump. As we walk, Inday explains that the scavengers sell their junk to village middlemen who in turn sell it to Manila firms at 100 per cent markup. She says the middlemen pay by the kilogram (2.2 pounds). Clean plastic bags and wrappers: 40 cents (2.5 pesos) per kilo. Aluminum cans: 60 cents a kilo. Plywood and other boards: 15 cents. If your luck at the dump yields copper piping, you get $1.65 per kilo.
"I used to be able to carry thirty kilo per trip," Inday tells me. "But now with more Marines chasing us, I can't stop and rest, so I average only fifteen or twenty kilos a day."
Why are the Marines sent to chase the scavengers? In subsequent days I would address that question to Lieutenant Commander Frederic Leeder, Public Affairs Officer on the naval base. "We work with it as a security problem," Leeder would reply. "We have thirteen hundred American families and lots of equipment here we have to protect. Things have occasionally been stolen from the living quarters by people who come onto the base illegally. You'll have this problem anywhere in the world, but it's particularly difficult when the economic level of the base people and the surrounding community are so different."
Indeed, this morning as we leave the high cogon grass and enter a bird-filled jungle forest, Inday is telling me that a few of the villagers sometimes did proceed to the housing area of the base-several kilometers from the dump--and steal personal or base belongings. "There are some thieves, but they're different from the scavengers," Inday insists. "Why don't the Marines let us alone and just catch the thieves? We scavengers never go into the main part of the base. But if they catch us they burn the trash we've picked up and arrest us. I think that's cruel."
What do the villagers say when arrested by the Marines, I ask Inday. "Oh, we tell them what we think," Inday declares. "I have a girl friend who was caught, and she told that Marine, 'If you don't want us poor people coming and picking up the junk that you throw out, then you take your garbage back to the United States and dump it there.' "
Suddenly Inday's hand shoots up, and we all halt in silence. Our scout has detected movement on the path in front of us. Inday slips off her rubber sandals. She whispers, "You can run faster this way."
False alarm. No Marines. Just several villagers laden with boards and scrap metal returning from the dump. When they spot me a look of fright flashes over them, and they prepare to drop their booty and flee into the grass. Our scout quickly reassures them, explaining that I am not a Marine, just a church worker who wants to learn the life of the scavengers. This alarmed encounter is to be repeated many times in the next hour on the trail.
Eventually we emerge on a hidden rocky ledge where a dozen other villagers are watching our target 200 meters ahead and below: the American dump. To my untrained eye it is as nondescript as any dump in the world. But this acre of junk is the source of life for 700 families in Cabalan barrio.
I can see in the distance the warehouses, the fuel tanks, and the derricks of the American naval base. Overhead, jet fighters on test runs screech out their ominous fury. This is the base which, together with its sister, Clark Air Field, 70 kilometers to the northeast, an American promise of $500 million over five years in military aid monies to the Marcos government. Many Filipinos, including many who live in the environs of the base and have become economically dependent on them, will say they want the bases to stay. A growing number of Filipinos, however, see the bases as preventing the Philippines from becoming truly independent from American control. Further, they point to the actual danger the bases present for the Philippines.
"I do believe these military bases are causing so much tension," Jaime Cardinal Sin, Philippines' top Catholic churchman, told me recently. "I'm scared. If something happens, naturally the Russians will immediately hit these bases. And the whole Philippines might disappear."
I ponder the dump. It is the dregs of a military system that features nuclear submarines, aircraft carriers, and earth-crushing nuclear warheads (some of which are allegedly stored at this base), all price-tagged at billions of dollars. Yet the little people of Cabalan have to risk arrest just to pick up the crumbs that fall from the military table.
But remarkably, the dignity of these people around me seems intact. I sense the strength of Inday's spirit as we abandon the rocky ledge and hike the four kilometers back to the "rough road" and on to her house. (I had suddenly persuaded myself that retreat might be the better part of valor here, especially since the other villagers at the rocky ledge said they had spotted a Marine hiding in ambush near the dumpsite.)
Safe again, we sit outside Inday's tiny house made entirely from plywood and two-by-fours she has rescued from the dump. As we drink water, Inday's stories continue, often punctuated by laughs. "I've been caught eight times now by the Marines. Once a Marine caught me and asked me why I was running. 'Because you're running after me!' I said. Then he said I was trespassing, that this was their area. I told him, 'What you call your area is part of the Philippines. And the Philippines is for the Filipino people.' "
I was left to wonder if Inday's statement was a declaration of fact or a vision to be fulfilled.
Earl Martin was a Sojourners correspondent who worked in the Philippines on a service assignment with Mennonite Central Committee when this article appeared.
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