Click here for our free newsletter. When the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo buried the region in volcanic ash and hastened the departure of United States forces from Clark Air Base, some 20,000 homeless Filipino families were relocated onto the sprawling installation. The rising incidence of serious health conditions and premature deaths suggests causes beyond poverty and poor medical care. When the Air Force departed Clark, it conducted a hasty removal of waste containers but refused Philippine government requests for data on toxic dumping. Today, the Pentagon acknowledges polluting major overseas bases but insists that the United States isn't obligated to clean them up.
People are sick, dying, or dead.
The Philippines gets nothing. Meanwhile, with no alternative housing, some 4,000 families remain at Clark, drinking the same mercury-laced water and growing vegetables in the same poisoned soil. World Report Inc. All rights reserved.