Best-leaked secret in Manila

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 12

Best-leaked secret in Manila

From

“The Economist,”

London

The bad news for President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines is not getting worse. The country is not in a state of rebellion, neither is it bankrupt. The prophets of doom for Mr Marcos could still be right: he has had his fiercest confrontation so far with the head of the Roman Catholic church in the Philippines, Cardinal Jaime Sin; the United States is no longer an uncritical friend and protector; but the wily old survivor still has a chance of surviving his present crisis. The president’s biggest problem is the nagging matter of the report of the commission of inquiry into the murder of the opposition leader, Benigno Aquino, in August last year. The report’s promised publication has been postponed four times, most recently on October 5. Each time the chairman, Mrs Corazon Agrava, a retired judge, has changed her mind. As it happens, the Aquino murder may have strengthened the hope of democracy in the Philippines by making Filipinos more politically demanding. A general election in May (which saw a third of the assembly’s seats go to the opposition), together with some constitutional amendments, have helped to prepare the way for a non-violent succession to Mr Marcos.

These fragile gains could be lost, the argument goes, if the Agrava commission comes out with a report that stirs the opposition to unrest and the Government to further repression. According to what has been leaked of the report, the commission appears to have concluded that the head of the Philippine armed forces, General Fabian Ver, ordered the killing. In spite of the army’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry, modern technology is said to have trapped the killers. Tape-recorders carried by foreign correspondents, who accompanied Aquino on his flight to Manila picked up what sounded

like military commands to shoot him. Television cameras failed to film the actual assassination, because soldiers pushed the cameramen inside the airliner aside just before it took place, but pictures taken immediately before and after the killing reveal a sinister pattern of movements and signals by army officers on board the aeroplace and on the tarmac below.

Mrs Agrava has so far apparently failed to persuade her four colleagues on the commission to drop General Ver’s name from the list of those implicated. Mr Marcos will fiercely oppose any report that blames General Ver and, by implication, himself. General Ver used to be Mr Marcos’s bodyguard and chauffeur and is his most trusted military officer, controlling both the armed forces and the nation’s elaborate secret police and intelligence organisation. If Mr Marcos feels that things are getting out of control, a return to martial law cannot be ruled out. However, the leaks may be helping him to ride out the crisis, by reducing the impact of the report when it is published. Cardinal Sin is not making life easier for Mr Marcos. He urged business leaders to join “the storm of non-violent protest.” As the country’s leading businessmen prepared to march with student, church, and labour groups in a demonstration against the Government on October 7, Mr Marcos went on television to threaten to arrest the cardinal and other leaders if they tried to demonstrate.

At the last moment, however, a showdown was averted when Mr Marcos agreed to permit a “prayer rally” and to hold back his riot-control troops. Even a threat to arrest the cardinal is remarkable from Mr Marcos, a Catholic who attends mass regularly and whose marriage to Imelda is periodically re-

blessed by the cardinal himself. Cardinal Sin’s main concern seems to be to head off the growing appeal of the Communist party. Last week an official of the United States defence department, Mr Richard Armitage, told a congressional sub-committee in Washington that the Communists, with around 10,000 armed men, could seize power in the Philippines in the next 10 years if the army — which he said was corrupt, abusive, and indisciplined — did not shape up. The sub-committee was also told that the Communist New People’s Army had established “a meaningful presence in about two thirds of the country’s provinces,” with “the Government widely perceived [as being] on the defensive” in some areas.

Mr Marcos said on television that he was concerned that the cardinal and his friends were jeopardising a successful outcome of the rescheduling talks with the International Monetary Fund and the country’s 483 creditor banks, which would conclude “that the Government is unstable, is weak, incompetent and unable to enforce the law.”

Mr Marcos’s real fear, however, may have been that, a strong showing by the opposition on the streets would attract disaffected sections of the army. Some officers have been angered by the way in which Mr Marcos and General Ver have promoted their relatives and friends over the heads of more deserving men. If they joined the opposition the present crisis might explode into martial law and interarmy fighting. The reality is that Mr Marcos is still there. On October 10 the Philippine Government said the I.M.F. talks were going well. Rumours of a helicopter standing by with its rotors turning to fly Mr Marcos to exile are no more than rumours. He is even looking healthier than he was a few months ago. The issue is not settled yet. Copyright—“ The Economist,” London.