Marcos, General Westmoreland visited Manila, where he praised the excellent performance of the Philippine Civic Action Group, Vietnam, and suggested that if the Philippine government wanted to increase its contribution to South Vietnam it might consider providing a squadron of UH-1D helicopters for civic action work. Another possibility was Philippine assistance in training a South Vietnamese constabulary similar to the Philippine constabulary; some Philippine advisers could go to South Vietnam while some Vietnamese cadres could be placed with the Philippine constabulary for training in the Philippines.
President Marcos appeared genuinely interested in the idea of forming a helicopter squadron, particularly if his country was to be permitted to keep the aircraft after the completion of the Vietnam mission. He was also in favor of the U.S. proposal to train additional helicopter pilots with the thought that they might be available for duty in South Vietnam, and showed interest in the proposal to have ten helicopters in Vietnam while six were retained in the Philippines for training purposes. But Marcos was not yet ready to approve the entire project, even though the U.S. Embassy in Manila and General Gomes, Chief, Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group, Philippines, concurred in the project and recommended its implementation. Both the ambassador and General Gomes were aware, however, of limiting factors. The Philippine Military Assistance Program could not absorb funding for the squadron without destroying its current program. Furthermore, all of the initial training would have to be conducted in the United States because there were no facilities available in the Philippines.
General Westmoreland believed that a Philippine helicopter squadron would be a welcome addition to Free World forces in South Vietnam, especially if it could support civic action missions of the expanding Philippine program. He preferred a squadron of twenty-five helicopters with the exact table of equipment to be determined through discussions with the Philippine Civic Action Group. The squadron would have to be equipped with UH-1D's since provision of UH-1B helicopters was being curtailed, but there were not enough helicopters in Vietnam to do this without affecting existing operations. If the aircraft could not be supplied from sources outside Vietnam, then the squadron would have to be equipped first with H-34 helicopters and then with UH-1D helicopters the following year. The usual ten hours of transition flying would be required to qualify Philippine H-34 pilots in the Huey aircraft. Philippine Air Force helicopter squadrons were capable of organic third and fourth echelon
