Should we all stop digging? They claim to have found Yamashita’s gold in Thailand - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

There’s something about buried treasure that drives men mad. Everytime somebody finds a "lost" treasure map, it’s enough to send even ostensibly sensible people off on a frantic "digging" spree.

For years, stories about fabulous caches of "Yamashita" gold and other Japanese wartime loot have been the stuff of legend in the Philippines. Even the family of the late Apo Ferdinand Marcos at one time tried to pass off the tall tale that Macoy and company had found the hidden hoard of Japan’s General Tomoyuki Yamashita and this was the foundation of the Marcos "unexplained" wealth. Then there was the American, dubbed McDiggold, who practically tore up historic Fort Santiago in search of the same fantastic stash. Aside from the so-called "Golden Buddha" reportedly snatched from the late treasure hunter Simeon Roxas, nothing really has surfaced – not even the real "Golden Buddha" itself.

I’ve always questioned these fairy-tales, but they persist to this day. To begin with, why should the Japanese Army have looted Southeast Asia, then transported all that gold and jewellery to the Philippines to be concealed in secret caves and underground warrens (even undersea vaults kuno) when it was even easier for their generals and soldiers to have shipped the accumulated hoard to Japan itself?

The truth is that we’ve got plenty of gold ourselves, easily dug up or recovered by placer mining methods from our own Mount Diwalwal in Mindanao, not far from Tagum, Davao. This gold is being "stolen" by a Chinese-Filipino cabal and shipped surreptitiously abroad, totally bypassing the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, with not a single gram surrendered to our government nor a centavo paid in taxes. This plundering of our natural resources ("plunder" is a popular buzzword nowadays) continues to go on right under the noses of our Cabinet ministries and the Philippine National Police, with the connivance of so-called "small miners" (who aren’t "small" really but have long ago become multimillionaires). I’ve exposed this racket in this corner several times, but nothing ever came of our complaints – so, there.

But now come the Thais. In yesterday’s Asian Wall Street Journal, the lead editorial revealed that – as its headline goes – "Thailand’s Thaksin Banks on a Pot of Gold." The editorial sarcastically points out that "rarely do nations publicly bank on such imprudent dreams . . ." yet adds "that is exactly what Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is doing these days."

The piece went on to say: "Tales of a gold discovery have been buzzing in the kingdom for a week. The word is that buried in a cave in western Kanchanaburi is a cache of gold weighing more than 2,500 pounds. Supposedly it is stolen loot the Japanese stashed there for safekeeping during World War II. Mr. Thaksin, who rushed to the site last Friday, excitedly claimed that it could be worth ‘billions and billions of baht.’ Senator Chaovarin Latthasaksiri claims the booty could wipe out the $55 billion (2.5 trillion baht) national debt."

That General Yamashita (whom we hanged after he surrendered in what is now the US Embassy residence in Camp John Hay) must have been busier than the Easter Bunny. The Easter Bunny hid a few dozen "easter eggs" here and there to be dug up by excited children last Easter Sunday, but Yama-Baby – if the wild yarns are correct – busily squirreled away much more, in the form of tons of gold from Thailand to the Philippines. Sus, no wonder the Japanese lost the war. They must have been more concerned with handling shovels than rifles and cannon.

There was, many years ago – long before "technicolor" was invented to replace black-and-white – a wonderful movie starring James Stewart and Paulette Goddard. It was entitled Pot o’ Gold. The two discovered in the end that the real treasure was in their hearts. There’s a lesson in this for us. In this cynical world, you’ll find that many Filipinos – even in the despairing shanty-towns of the poor – still have hearts of gold. That’s a commodity which is beyond price.

* * *

The Thais are obviously taking the report of treasure, inside the Lichea Cave in Karnchaburi province some 110 kilometers west of Bangkok, very seriously. They’ve dispatched a 60-member team of soldiers and forestry experts, mining engineers and mineral resources officials to drill through the cave where the gold hoard is supposed to be located. At the same time, over 400 policemen and foresters have been assigned to keep curiosity-seekers away.

What’s strange is that the Thai Senator who started it all, Chaovarin Lathasaksiri, hasn’t actually seen the treasure itself, according to a newspaper I used to write for, the Bangkok Post. The respected English-language daily says the senator had merely based his claims on a tale by an old monk who used to meditate inside the cave in question.

The monk alleged he had stumbled on 50 chests of gold, the wreck of a steam locomotive, and the skeletons of Japanese soldiers who had committed hara-kiri in the place.

The monk, as it happened, recounted what he saw to two men who, in turn, rushed off to submit a report on the "treasure" to the King of Thailand. (Where was Anna, alias Jodie Foster, when all this was happening?) In any event, like the Emperor’s New Clothes, the New Gold Hoard might be non-existent. In our law courts, they would call the entire episode, "hearsay."

* * *

The United States has racheted up the tension in the South China Sea by talking about deploying one of its supercarriers to the area, probably the USS Kitty Hawk which is based in Yokusuka, Japan.

This means that US President George W. Bush, whose rhetoric has escalated in tone since the Americans recovered the 24-member crew of the downed EP-3 Aries II "spy plane" from the Chinese, intends to resume spy flights despite Beijing’s protests – and plans to protect them with aircraft from the Kitty Hawk.

According to the Washington Post, Admiral Dennis Blair, the US Commander-in-Chief for the Pacific (CINCPAC), based in Hawaii, last week "suggested three possible courses of action to the Bush administration, an official said: Send the Kitty Hawk on a slow northward track through the South China Sea, order it to linger further south in the Philippines, or keep it on its planned course towards Guam."

The people of Guam, of course, are delighted at the prospect of the US Navy, as well as the US Air Force and land forces, reactivating the mothballed American bases on Guam, such as the famous airbase from which the big aircraft of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) used to fly, or bombers on their way to attack Hanoi and other targets in North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. With the Japanese economy in continuing distress since the "bubble" burst in the early 1990s, Japanese tourists have stopped coming in the usual droves, including honeymooners putting Guam’s once-booming tourism into deficit. If the US military "returns" to Guam, that would revitalize the island’s faltering economy.

There’s no doubt that the face-off between Washington, DC and Beijing has also enhanced the Philippines’ importance in the scheme of Asian security and defense.

The words "linger in the Philippines" raises visions of the Americans requesting us for some place to berth the Kitty Hawk (CV 63) for provisioning and refitting. This type of vessel displaces 80,800 tons fully loaded and carries 85 aircraft (far more planes than the Philippine Air Force). The Kitty Hawk is usually grouped with three other aircraft carriers of similar type, the USS Constellation (CV 64), USS America (CV 66) and USS John F. Kennedy (CV 66), because of their common propulsion systems and flight deck layout. Although first commissioned in 1956, the Kitty Hawk was modernized (July 21, 1987 to November 29, 1989) under the US Navy’s Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) at a cost of $717 million, with new catapults fitted, aircraft facilities updated, electronics streamlined, the hull refurbished, and propulsion systems modernized.

Carriers of this type are second only to the more powerful Nimitz class carriers, which carry 90 aircraft whose capabilities range from nuclear strike, ground attack, to close-in anti-submarine protection. Each carrier is manned by a crew of 3,000 with an air wing of a further 3,000 men. Their nuclear reactors enable them to operate for 13 years at a stretch, equivalent to steaming up to one million nautical miles – without the need for refuelling.

A US carrier is not just a mobile naval airfield, but a concentration of air power, command and control systems and sensor technology. Carriers have around them a battle group of other vessels, each force under the acronym of a CVBG (Carrier Battle Group). Among the ships clustered around the "parent" carrier are Aegis-equipped missile cruisers and destroyers, deadly nuclear-powered attack submarines, all armed with surface-to-air missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles, not merely to defend the carrier from attack, but capable of delivering a "Sunday Punch" against any adversary.

There are, on six-month cruises at any given time, three or more such battle groups. One group is usually in the Pacific, another in the Mediterranean Sea, and another in the Persian Gulf region.

In this light, the former Subic naval base, or farther south in Mindanao, the General Santos City facilities, from airfield to deep bay, are a tempting short-term haven for a CVBG.

Owing to our "friendly" relations with China (but with an eye to our dispute over the Spratlys and Chinese intrusions into the Scarborough Shoal area off Zambales), our government may have to play its card very carefully. However, as I’ve said before, an American "presence" in the neighborhood isn’t at all bad for us.

In March 1996, two US aircraft carrier battle groups were dispatched to the Taiwan Straits after the People’s Republic of China began conducting ballistic missile exercises too close to Taiwan. The arrival of the two CVBGs is credited to have defused the crisis by discouraging the mainland Chinese from escalating their bullying tactics towards Taiwan.

What will the arrival of the US Kitty Hawk accomplish? When two big guys stand eyeball-to-eyeball, who do you think will blink first?

That remains to be seen.