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Philippines Relations with the Soviet Union
The Philippine government was always deeply suspicious of the
Soviet Union because of Moscow's ideological support for
communist insurgents. Marcos sometimes dispatched his wife to
Moscow, but only for the purpose of reminding Washington that
there were alternatives to exclusive reliance on the West for
aid. Soviet Communist Party general secretary Leonid Brezhnev
reciprocated by voicing support of Manila in opposition to the
Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army. The
government of Mikhail Gorbachev was embarrassed by its own
diplomatic clumsiness in dispatching the sole foreign ambassador
to attend Marcos's pitiful final inauguration on February 25,
1986, but it later opened cautious diplomatic dialogue with the
Aquino government and promised to continue to refuse support to
the Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People's Army.
In 1988 Moscow played on the Philippine-United States bases
controversy by offering to pull out from Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam
in return for United States withdrawal from Clark and Subic
bases, an initiative that withered on the vine. In 1991 the
Moscow hoped to acquire access to Philippine ports and dockyards
for its fishing fleet as a result of warmer relations with
Manila.
Data as of June 1991
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