Feb 21, 2011

Philippines Standoff in Manila

TIME, Monday, Feb. 17, 1986
By George Russell.;Sandra Burton and Barry Hillenbrand/

The contest could never really have been called fair. On one side was an ailing but wily autocrat, whose authority was waning but whose hands remained firmly clenched around the levers of political power. On the other was an unassuming but determined housewife-crusader, whose political resources were meager but whose brief and meteoric candidacy had fanned the desire of millions of her countrymen for political change. What had kept the mismatched sides in balance during the course of their 57-day election battle was a promise as potent in appeal as it was frail in prospect. The hope was that the issue would be decided democratically.

In that uncertain balance, at least for a moment last week, hung the future of the Philippines, a once vibrant Asian archipelago that is wallowing in social and economic stagnation and bedeviled by a growing Communist insurgency. On foot, by horse cart, even by boat, upwards of 24 million Philippine voters went to the polls to do something they had not done for 16 years: freely select a President. The choice appeared to be clear-cut. The candidates were President Ferdinand Marcos, 68, who has ruled for 20 years from the Spanish colonial-style Malacanang Palace, and Challenger Corazon Aquino, 53, who in the space of just ten weeks had emerged as the standard- bearer of a new force in the country, known as "people power."

There was only one clear-cut thing about the election ritual that unfolded at some 90,000 polling stations around the Philippines. Sporadically at first, then with increasing blatancy, the long-awaited exercise was marred by unsettling levels of violence, fraud, vote buying and ballot theft. More than a day after the polls closed, the official vote count by the Marcos-dominated Commission on Elections (COMELEC) had slowed to a crawl. Communications linking that effort to a parallel, informal vote count by a volunteer organization known as the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) had been severed. In many parts of the country, private citizens spent the night after the vote protecting ballot boxes with their bodies. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar, who headed a 20- member delegation of official U.S. observers at the election exercise, declared that a "very disturbing pattern of incidents" had emerged. Said he: "The count is being shaped to what the President needs."

Some 18 hours after the polls closed, Marcos, in a U.S. television interview, serenely declared himself the election winner. Citing unofficial vote counts by the government-controlled Philippine press, he claimed that he had gained some 13 million votes, vs. 11 million for Aquino, a margin of roughly 54% to 46%. Marcos blandly denied any attempt at fraud. An official vote count, he said, would be available in "a few days."

Aquino also declared victory, eight hours after the polls closed. In a statement, she said that "the trend is clear and irreversible. The people and I have won, and we know it." Aquino Spokesman Rene Saguisag added that the election had been "the dirtiest we have ever had."

The confused and contradictory situation was greeted with gloomy silence by the Reagan Administration, which had worked hard to try to ensure a free, fair and, above all, credible outcome to the balloting. In Washington, State Department officials said that they would delay any formal U.S. response to the election until this week. Nonetheless, Spokesman Bernard Kalb took note of the reports of fraud and violence and termed them "regrettable." Privately, one Administration official disclosed that he and his colleagues were observing the Philippine developments with "nausea." Said he: "Marcos is running scared. He is letting it all hang out, and doesn't care who sees him. It's a bigger mess than we expected."

The murky outcome left the Administration in an excruciating dilemma. It was American unhappiness with the drift of Marcos' government and ensuing social restiveness in the Philippines that led him to call the surprise election last November. For months Administration officials had been publicly warning that the far-flung country was drifting toward a dangerous right-left polarization. On the right stands Marcos. On the left is an insurgency spearheaded by the estimated 16,500 members of the Communist New People's Army, which has been steadily gaining in force. As has happened so often before, the political center was in danger of disappearing. The Administration was also worried about the fate of its two most important military installations in the Pacific, Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air Base. Both are in the Philippines, and both are subject to a lease that expires in 1991.

Marcos' call for elections caught Washington flat-footed. The strongman, who suffers from a form of systemic lupus erythematosus, a disease that often affects the kidneys, had grown increasingly withdrawn from the country's plight; he had craftily evaded previous U.S. pressures for reform. Most experts were skeptical that the vote would lead to any significant power shift in Manila. But among many Filipinos, the notion that the balloting might lead to change seemed to take on a life of its own. Philippine voters might even provide the occasion for an all too rare peaceful transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

Organizationally, the odds were always stacked in favor of Marcos and his governing New Society Movement (K.B.L.). The President's war chest bulged with about $160 million in campaign funds, and he also had at his disposal uncounted millions from the government pork barrel.

As the campaign wore on, Marcos scattered more and more giveaways from the stump. At a typical stop in the economically depressed, sugar-producing province of Negros Occidental, where anti-Marcos sentiment is known to be strong, the President went on just such a vote-getting spree. He announced the gift of $25 million in additional credits for a sugar-marketing organization, a cut in interest rates for sugar planters from 42% to 16%, a reduction in the cost of area electricity, and the electrification of some nearby towns. His audience of farmers and townspeople, many of whom had been paid between $1.50 and $2.50 to attend the rally, applauded each announcement fervidly.

Aside from money, he could count on a near monopoly of local political machinery. The K.B.L. controls 73 of 74 provincial governorships and all but a handful of the 1,592 mayors' offices. Virtually every one of 41,615 Filipino barangays (villages) has a K.B.L. ward heeler. Such a network was invaluable for getting supporters to campaign rallies, and even more important in turning out voters on election day.

Marcos' personal supervision of that network was impressive. Every night after 10 o'clock, the President for several hours fielded calls from K.B.L. officials around the country. The party hands reported on the pro-Marcos voting prospects in their locales, the lineup of poll inspectors and campaign issues. Meanwhile, more detailed election data were fed into a newly installed computer system in a presidential office building. According to opposition critics, the high-tech apparatus could be used to estimate the number of false ballots that might be required to win at each location.

Another Marcos source of strength was his hold on the country's news media. Presidential supporters own almost all of the 14 major daily newspapers and four of the five major television networks. The remaining TV outlet is owned outright by the government. Nearly all of the country's 270 radio stations owe allegiance to Marcos. Most presidential forays were covered in detail throughout the campaign, and many Marcos speeches were broadcast from start to finish.

Aquino, the widow of assassinated Opposition Politician Benigno Aquino Jr., was rarely seen on television news and was blocked by a series of bureaucratic ruses whenever she tried to buy political advertising time. The challenger's lawyer finally filed a petition against the government-owned Channel 4 in Manila to force increased coverage of her campaign. In the three days after the lawyer's petition was filed, Aquino's name was mentioned on the government channel only four times, once in a false charge that she had agreed to cede the southern part of the nation to Muslim separatists.

Aquino received some unsolicited television attention from Marcos' department of dirty video tricks. As the campaign wound down, presidential supporters put television footage of the challenger on the air on all Philippine stations. Each spot featured a female voice that sounded like Aquino's and showed the candidate in a montage of foreign war footage and other scenes of chaos. Despite Aquino's strenuous complaints, the offending spots were not removed.

In other times, such tactics might have prevailed, but the mighty Marcos machine was running against a totally unconventional movement. The Aquino campaign, long on enthusiasm and short on organization, sometimes resembled a political Woodstock. As Aquino and her vice-presidential nominee, Salvador ("Doy") Laurel, crisscrossed 68 provinces, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos from all walks of life swarmed to hear the presidential challenger repeat a simple talk. At each stop, Aquino related the alleged suffering her family had endured at the hands of the Marcos government, culminating in her husband's 1983 assassination. She capped each speech with a slogan: "Sobra na, tama na, palitan na!" (Too much, enough, let's change!)

As the campaign progressed, Aquino began to outline her program in increasing detail. At a speech last week to a joint meeting in Manila of domestic and foreign Chambers of Commerce, she put forth a reform plan for an initial 100 days in office. She promised that she would attack Marcos-inspired corruption "with the zeal of a crusading housewife let loose in a den of world-class thieves." She said she would break up the last elements of the sugar and coconut monopolies run by Marcos cronies, remove taxes on seeds and fertilizers, and cut taxes on fuel and electricity. Her audience of at least 2,000 applauded enthusiastically.

Public support for Aquino reached a spectacular climax three days before the balloting, at the challenger's final rally. The gathering easily ranked among the largest in Philippine history. An enormous crush of humanity flocked to Manila's Rizal Park to hear Aquino and Laurel make their concluding speeches. A sea of yellow T shirts and banners, reflecting Aquino's campaign color, overflowed the sprawling harbor-front park. Yellow ticker tape and confetti rained down from office buildings surrounding the capacious square. < In contrast to earlier Aquino rallies, which had had a decidedly homespun air, an array of professional singing and television stars held the throng's attention for three hours before the opposition candidates arrived. When Aquino and Laurel finally appeared, a cacophony of auto horns erupted, fireworks lighted the evening sky, and the crowd launched into a deafening welcome chant of "Cory! Cory! Cory!"

Aquino first led the crowd in singing the Lord's Prayer. She then castigated the Marcos regime for economic mismanagement and human-rights violations, declaring, "I am sure we have won the election." Said she, surveying the crowd: "Marcos will not be able to stop this. It's our chance to write history."

Marcos faced the same Chambers of Commerce in Manila the day after Aquino, but his reception was markedly tepid. The President attacked his opponent for naively believing that the country's Communist insurgents would lay down their arms in response to a six-month cease-fire, which is part of her campaign platform. But even though Marcos announced that he would, among other things, cut sales taxes and reduce domestic oil prices, applause from the business audience was merely polite.

Later in the day, Marcos held his own concluding rally at Rizal Park. A horde of workers had descended on the area and replaced yellow-and-green Aquino-Laurel posters with red-white-and-blue placards extolling Marcos and his running mate, Arturo ("Turing") Tolentino, 75. Buses and flatbed trucks full of New Society faithful rolled in from outlying suburbs. Estimates of the crowd in the area ranged as high as 500,000. Many of those gathered for the extravaganza admitted openly that they had been paid from $2.50 to $5 to attend. As the time approached for the scheduled appearance of Marcos and his wife Imelda, helicopters flew overhead trailing red-white-and-blue smoke. Top- ranking Philippine show-business figures worked the crowd into a pleasantly receptive mood. Red-uniformed marching bands began to blare as the faithful chanted the President's campaign slogan, "Marcos pa rin!" (Marcos still!)

Then, just as Marcos prepared to mount the dais, disaster struck. It began to rain. As water poured down, the President's audience fled in all directions, ignoring loudspeaker pleas to stand fast and "sacrifice for what we are fighting for." Those who remained huddled closer to the speaker's platform. After the ten-minute downpour had ended, Imelda Marcos took the stage. Supporters cheered loudly when she urged the country to stand behind her husband because he was "maka-Diyos, maka-tao, maka-bayan" (pro-God, pro- people, pro-nation).

Marcos was conciliatory and bellicose by turn when he finally addressed the soggy gathering. For nearly 40 minutes he attacked his opponent's political inexperience and pleaded that it was the desire of the Philippine people, rather than his own wishes, that kept him in office. Then he warned that if his opponents took to the streets, "I will use the whole might and strength of the armed forces to protect the people and stop the opposition." Said he: "All we want is peace, not civil war."

The same day, Aquino received her strongest boost yet from Jaime Cardinal Sin, the ranking Roman Catholic prelate of the Philippines. The Cardinal praised the presidential challenger as someone who will "make a good President." He added, "I am tempted to ask, Is this a presidential election, or is this a contest between good and the forces of evil?" Sin's all-but- explicit endorsement carried considerable weight in a country that is nominally 84% Catholic.

Any final doubts about the Cardinal's sympathies were ended when he turned down an invitation from President Marcos and his family to pray together for honest elections. Said the prelate: "I think they can pray without me. It's better that they pray and ask the Lord for mercy and compassion."

The day after Sin's objurgation, Marcos raised the level of political tension yet again by placing the 230,000-member armed forces on red alert. Under that status, which was extended indefinitely, all military leaves and furloughs were canceled. Marcos' reason: Aquino, he claimed, had said that his re-election would spark a civil war.

As Filipinos thronged to their polling stations, problems with voting registries began to crop up almost immediately. At the Araullo High School, a rambling wood- and-concrete structure on United Nations Avenue in midtown Manila, Policeman Oligario Remiruta, 46, lined up to cast his vote. The local poll chairman could not find Remiruta's name on the voters' list. By noon, 84 people at the school had received the same treatment.

Other peculiarities cropped up. In the Manila dockside slum of Tondo, teachers at the Imelda Marcos Elementary School complained that they were being asked to recruit ten voters each for Marcos. Well before the voting began, Marcos operatives in northerly Quezon City were openly offering indigents money to fill out their ballots in advance.

Nonetheless, both Marcos and Aquino were ready to declare victory. As he prepared to fly from Manila to his hometown of Batac in the northerly province of Ilocos Norte, the President declared that "if the difference is only 3 million (votes), I'll be disappointed." Aquino voted in her hometown of San Miguel, in the southern province of Tarlac. Said she: "Today is my day. I hope to see you all at my inaugural."

She spoke far too soon. As election day dawned in the village of Balutu, not far from Aquino's home, the atmosphere was tense. Difficulties began as soon as balloting commenced at the local elementary school, when an opposition poll watcher discovered that some 20% to 30% of the barangay's voters were not listed on the rolls and were therefore disqualified. Then, some 35 minutes before the 3 p.m. close of the polling station, a red vehicle with MARCOS- TOLENTINO stickers on the bumper pulled up behind the school. Six men armed with M-16 rifles that had MARCOS decals on the barrels jumped out and headed for the school- yard. Their objective: the ballot boxes. Terror-stricken poll watchers huddled around the boxes in a nervous effort to prevent an obvious theft. At the last moment, a carload of opposition poll watchers arrived. One of the newcomers, a former Filipino Minister of Agriculture, somehow arranged to rescue the ballot boxes and have them carried by election officials to the nearby town of Concepcion for tabulation.

Many similar scenes were taking place across the country. In the Manila district of San Andres, a residential suburb, men wearing military uniforms snatched an undetermined number of ballot boxes. In the industrial suburb of Pasig, more than 100 men armed with knives, pistols and high-powered rifles ordered everyone present at one station to lie down on the floor and then walked off with the voting receptacles.

In some parts of the country, cheating hardly seemed necessary. One such place was Danao, a city on the coast of southerly Cebu island, where a road sign proclaims WELCOME TO FERDINAND MARCOS COUNTRY. Danao is the fiefdom of Businessman Ramon Durano, who owns, among other things, almost all the local cement, sugar, mining and banking industries. He may well have control over most of the 59,000 registered local voters, an unusually high proportion of the 80,000 population in the area. Not a single volunteer could be found in & Danao and surrounding suburbs to act as an opposition poll watcher at the 147 local polling precincts. Said Voting Registrar Roque Loro: "New Society Movement, there are plenty. But opposition, there are none."

After the polls closed, the vote counting started slowly across the Philippines and then almost stopped. Nearly 48 hours after balloting ended, only about 28% of the votes had been officially tabulated. The government's COMELEC tally showed Marcos ahead with 3 million votes, compared with Aquino's 2.9 million. The sluggish pace of the count indicated to many opposition leaders that COMELEC was having trouble making its totals come out to the government's satisfaction. Meanwhile, the volunteer group NAMFREL said that in its unofficial tally Aquino had 5.3 million votes, while the President had about 4.5 million after 46% of precincts had reported.

As the weekend wore on, the situation in Manila remained surprisingly calm. Since Marcos had hunkered down in the presidential Malacanang Palace, it seemed that it might be up to the opposition to make the next move to break the election deadlock. Aquino's first step in that direction was a mild one. On Saturday she called a press conference to demand that Marcos concede "in the best tradition of democratic politics." Three hours later, the President held a press conference of his own to reiterate his claim to victory, by a new margin of 1.5 million votes. He reminded journalists that the formal naming of a winner was the responsibility of the National Assembly, which he controls, and even raised the vague possibility that he might declare the whole election invalid.

Sadly, the vote that many Filipinos had hoped would improve their country's doleful lot looked as if it would leave the Philippines more divided, more dangerous and angrier than ever.

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