17 - Home Leave in Preparation for a State Visit

Summary

From Madrid with a brief stopover in Bangkok, Guerrero arrived with Annie in Manila on 20 February 1965, to participate in welcoming the Marques and Marquesa de Villaverde, the son-in-law and only daughter of Generalissimo and Mrs Franco, and Spanish Foreign Minister Castiella. The visit was to return the generosity accorded to President Macapagal when he visited Spain three years ago. Originally scheduled in April in time for ceremonies celebrating the Christianization of the Philippines in Cebu, the state visitors arrived on 24 February.

In an interview about the American debacle in Vietnam the following day, Guerrero said that if the United States were to leave Vietnam, the Philippines could assume an important and strategic role in the American defence map and if that happened, the Philippines would be in a much greater bargaining position to gain more concessions from the United States. At that time, the Americans were negotiating with the Philippine Government for the revision of the 1947 Military Bases Agreement. He likened the situation of the Philippines to that of Spain. The United States negotiated with Spain for another ten-year extension of the bases agreement for which it obtained massive assistance as it bargained for more concessions.

The week-long state visit was both a success and a failure. Guerrero was supposed to arrive with the state visitors but he deliberately came two days earlier to arrange for them to meet Filipinos, not Spaniards. He had told them: “You are going 10,000 miles to the Philippines and I do not want to spend your visit there with other Spaniards. I want you to know and meet the Filipino people.” They did not, for they spent their time with other Spaniards. He also wanted them to go to Pansol or to Pagsanjan to meet the real Filipinos who revolted against Spain. He would have wanted them to walk on Azcárraga. “How can you find Filipinos in Forbes Park, for goodness sake! It's really stupid. What idea will they have of Filipinos if they mix only with the Zobels and the Elizaldes and so forth?” He succeeded in one thing, that of taking them to the Senate for them “to see Philippine democracy in action”.