‘The eyes of the world are on us’

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 26

‘The eyes of the world are on us’

NZPA-Reuter Manila President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines told his political lieutenants yesterday to fight cheating and violence in next month’s election because the eyes of the world were on them.

He held a campaign strategy session as officials in the United States, his staunchest ally during 20 years of uninterrupted power, voiced alarm that he might win by fraud. “The eyes of the world are focused upon us,” President Marcos told leaders of his ruling New Society Movement. “We must prove to them nobody needs to tell us how to hold a clean and democratic election,” he said.

He called the meeting at the Malacanang Palace after declaring that he wanted polling on February 7 to be as clean and violence free as possible. He also ordered the disarming of all civilians who defied electoral law

by carrying guns in the streets without special permission.

The Minister for Political Affairs, Leonardo Perez, said at the meeting that some radical members of the Roman Catholic church were using the pulpit to promote the opposition presidential contender, Corazon Aquino. His allegation came a week to the day after Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila and spiritual leader of the Philippines’ 40 million Catholics, issued a pastoral letter warning President Marcos that God would not forgive him if he won by cheating. The Opposition has repeatedly accused the governing parties of plotting to rig the vote with “guns, goons and gold." Cardinal Sin, a critic of the Marcos Government, said in his letter that there had been plots, bribes, lies and “black propaganda” against the Opposition.