Philippines, Vietnam war, 1972

1972, Marcos declared Martial Law, major step toward authoritarian, dictatorial rule with Philippine constitution nod!
Unofficial State Dept summary of Southeast Asia foreign relations, 1969 - 1976 at this site. This unofficial State Dept summary is anti-Nixon in my view. Nothing change at the State Dept since then.

Fissures in the normally solid relationship, however, emerged during the
first Nixon administration and were centered around the military base renegotiation process. In the initial discussions, President Nixon’s insistence that the United States drastically cut its military personnel in the Philippines as a means of improving the U.S. balance of payments frustrated Philippine officials. Crimes committed against Filipinos by U.S. servicemen were a particularly problematic issue and added further complications to the base negotiations. Tensions also emerged over the new Philippine constitutional prohibition that prevented non-Filipinos from owning land, which created considerable problems for land-holding U.S. citizens and companies in the Philippines. Finally, Marcos’s support of the extension of the Laurel-Langley
agreements, giving preferential treatment to Philippine products in the United States, did little to smooth the growing discord as the agreements ran against
the general U.S. move towards free trade. The Nixon administration recognized the Philippines as a special friend, but the culture of corruption, the imposition of martial law in 1972, and the dictatorial tendencies of the Marcos government worried some U.S. officials. The Embassy highlighted these problems and U.S. officials tried to encourage Marcos to reform his government’s practices and move back toward democracy. As U.S. critics vocalized their concerns about the Marcos government, particularly in the Senate’s Symington subcommittee, the Nixon administration rallied behind Marcos and worked hard to blunt criticism of the Philippines in Congress. Instead of dealing directly with reports from U.S. Government experts that there were real problems in the Philippines, administration officials tended to ignore or downplay the significance of those statements. Although the Nixon administration neither encouraged nor approved of the imposition of martial law, it choose to continue working with Marcos as his support for the Vietnam war and the Philippine role in the Pacific overshadowed doubts about the country’s internal policies. Yet, while the Nixon administration appeared to support Marcos, the U.S. Embassy in Manila maintained a low-level dialogue with Senators Benigno Aquino and Sergio Osmena and other prominent Marcos opponents. It was this failure to fully embrace the Marcos government that, on occasion, inspired concern in the Marcos family that the United States was secretly working with Marcos opponents.
Although U.S. officials assured Marcos that they were not actively supporting
other candidates, or Marcos’s opponents, a lingering doubt remained within the
Marcos family.