Full alert in Philippines for General Election

Press, 7 April 1978, Page 6

Full alert in Philippines for General Election

NZPA-Reuter Manila Filipinos have begun a five-day holiday, and securi ity forces are on full alert Ito prev. t any violence be,fore today’s General Election i— the country’s first since martial law was declared in 1972. The holiday period was ordered by the Government to ensure that the nation’s 20 million voters could concentrate on the elections for an interim Legislative j Assembly. I The streets of Manila were almost deserted yesterday, with no further political activity allowed after a ; 45-day campaign in which President Ferdinand Marcos has called on the people to support his New Society Movement as the country’s only unifying force. The voters have 600 candidates to choose from for the 165 seats in the Assembly, in which President ' Marcos will automatically 'sit as Prime Minister. The New Society Move--1 ment has the only nationiwide ticket, and most inter-

,est is centred on metropoli-, I tan Manila, where the Oppo-j j sition People’s Power grouping led by a detained former senator. Mr Benigno Aquino, is contesting 21 seats!

against Administration can-, didates headed by Mrs Imelda Marcos, the President’s wife. President Marcos wound; up the campaign with al four-hour programme on] national television and radio! during which he accused the United States of interfering in domestic Philippines affairs. He named in particular the United States State Department human-rights specialist, Miss Pat Derian, who visited the Philippines earlier this year, as one of those trying to tell him how the country should be run. The President said Miss Derian had “started lecturing to us on how the Government should be run, how there should be Opposition parties, how we should conduct trials.” He said the United States had also asked him to re-; lease Mr Aquino and allow him to go to Harvard Uni-1 versity to study. Saying that I the Philippines had always • defended human rights, he added: “You could see the attempt to intervene in what; I consider the purely inter-1

nal affairs of the Government.” Mr Aquino has been detained §ince 1972. Last November he was sentenced to death on subversion charges, but his case has oeen >eopened on Presidential orders to allow him to present evidence. President Marcos has said that Mr Aquino could not constitutionally take a seat in the interim Assembly even if he is elected today. Mr Marcos said that under the new constitution covering these elections only those members of the Assembly accused of crimes punishable by less than six years, in jail were immune from arrest. He said that a survey conducted by the Government’s computer service had shown that New Society candidates would win all 21 seats in Manila. But People’s Power spokesmen forecast victories I for most of its candidates, land one said this would be only a beginning in “the fight for broader participation in the Government and i normalisation."