Marcos supporters give Aquino brush-off

Press, 14 January 1986, Page 6

Marcos supporters give Aquino brush-off

NZPA-Reuter Danao Voters loyal to President Ferdinand Marcos gave the opposition contender, Mrs Corazon Aquino, the brushoff yesterday when she ventured into one of his strongholds.

Only 300 followers, the smallest crowd so far in her campaign for the presidential elections, turned out when she attended mass in a church at Danao. An equal number of Marcos supporters stood outside waving placards saying: “Danao is 100 per cent behind Marcos.”

The chilly reception was in marked contrast to her enthusiastic showing in other parts of the country. In the nearby central Philippines city of Cebu the previous day about 200,000

people packed the streets to see Mrs Aquino and her running mate Salvador Laurel. Thousands more turned out to cheer her on the 40km drive from Cebu but the mood in Danao was hostile.

Mrs Aquino, aged 52, told reporters: “It is something very different. I could sense people were afraid (to come).” Danao is controlled by Mayor Ramon Durano and his family who are staunch supporters of President Marcos. But Cebu is regarded as an opposition territory.

Mr Durano told reporters that Mrs Aquino had no hope of winning in his city because her party lacked an organisation there. The chief of the Armed

Forces, General Fabian Ver, acquitted last month of involvement in the 1983 murder of Mrs Aquino’s husband, Benigno Aquino, was also in Cebu and said the Government would prosecute communists supporting her.

President Marcos has said many of her advisers are communists or communist Sthisers, a charge Mrs i has strongly denied. General Ver said the Government was monitoring the activities of her communist supporters and they would be charged after the election.

He said no action was being taken at the moment because it might be misunderstood.

In Manila, President Marcos said Mrs Aquino’s inexperience had reduced the

standard of political leadership and claimed her election could lead to national disintegration. “The nation is being sold the line that the presidency can be filled ... by totally inexperienced hands,” he said at the University of the Philippines College of Law. He said he did not expect Mrs Aquino to win the elections by accident but her candidacy has, “drawn the nation to lower its expectation of its leaders and bring down the standards of our leadership.

“Even in the best of times, this view of the highest office of the land would be dangerous for a nation,” he said. “Confronted with the kind of challenges and problems we now face, it can lead to national disintegration.”