The Manila Spectator/Cory Details
McGurn, William
THE MANILA SPECTATOR CORY DETAILS I t looked like another coup. For six or seven hours shots sounded left and right, the air was thick with sulphur, and the streets here were full of tires set...
...Similarly, though 1990 promises no substantive improvement over 1989—even Mrs...
...As 1989 wore down the good citizens of Manila simply ran,amok, the children setting off Roman candles in the streets and their fathers discharging pistols into the air...
...corruption is as rife as ever, and though Cory herself is clean, she has not been able to rein in either her cabinet or her relatives: Hurrah for the revolution, the snouts have changed but the trough goes on!—another reason no one speaks of the most recent coup attempt as the last...
...A notice in one such establishment is brief and to the point: "No Condoms, No Escort, No Short-Time...
...by William McGurn T hey might have won, too, had not the U.S...
...In America people have nice jobs even if just high school...
...intervened with two Phantom F-4 planes to secure the airspace above Manila, a move more or less supported by the populace here—more, outside Clark Air Base, whence the planes were dispatched...
...At the head of this movement is renegade Col...
...48 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR FEBRUARY 1990...
...Yet your man in Manila simply strolls through without being asked for so much as a driver's license...
...This itself is but a symptom of the Aquino administration's increasing inability just to govern...
...We're not fighters...
...Unfortunately, lawlessness is no joke in the Philippines today, and virtually every middle class shop, hotel, and residence has a uniformed (and armed) guard camped out front...
...They went back to the barracks with their guns and ammunition intact, singing regimental ballads and evidently in high spirits...
...Unlike previous attempts this coup involved the elite sections of the military (the Marines and Scout Rangers) and was led by members of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, a group of officers who first confronted Marcos about corruption and incompetence in the services back in 1984...
...From a military point of view the bedlam of the New Year's revelry would have made excellent cover for a repeat attempt, but from the Philippine point of view festas come first...
...I suppose there are some who feel that poor people should go around in sack-cloths and ashes, which is why the Philippines stands as a reproach to the whole liberal idea that man does indeed live by bread alone...
...In the middle stands the wreckage of the three-story GHQ building, first shelled during the August '87 coup attempt and shelled again this time 'round even though it was empty...
...At Camp Aguinaldo, captured by the mutinous officers in December, the sign by Gate 1 states that the camp is on "Red Alert" and that access is severely restricted...
...Just before the December 1 rebellion, for example, although the capital had been plagued by brownouts due to an electrical shortage, the Christmas lights went up in the streets and no Grinch Carter dared suggest otherwise...
...Some sixty-five miles north of Manila in Central Luzon, Clark is a one-company town, bearing the obligatory MacArthur Boulevard and dotted with dives with names like "Earthquake McGoon's" and the "Stardust Hotel...
...Over at the Star Wars pub, business is slow and the working gals are lolling about...
...Not lost on the folks here was that the rebel soldiers did not surrender...
...These are the same men who see their own refusal to obey Marcos's orders as saving the People Power revolution and putting Cory in power...
...I mentioned to my Philippine host that all this was illegal in the States...
...In December they showed strategic intelligence and tactical foresight in their taking of Manila's financial district (a move engineered by a 1978 West Point grad, Danny Lim) and two military installations, and though Filipinos overwhelmingly disapproved of their means an astounding 73 percent say that the men's grievances were just...
...Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan, a former aide to Senator Juan Ponce Enrile who continues to elude the government even as he grants interviews to comely reporters from CBS and Newsweek...
...But it would be a mistake to dismiss the coup leaders as clowns...
...found every inhabitant in this jumble of concrete, palm trees, and corrugated tin celebrating as though each had just won the Irish Sweepstakes...
...By contrast, the New Year's revelry left eleven dead and 2,400 wounded, including 100 or so Filipinos who lost a finger or a hand...
...For six or seven hours shots sounded left and right, the air was thick with sulphur, and the streets here were full of tires set ablaze...
...It's illegal here, too," he laughed, a fair indication of the difference between the Latin and Anglo-Saxon approaches to the law...
...it was still pitch black, but on a drive through Metro Manila the night was illuminated by explosive bursts everywhere and the flames licking at the curbsides...
...Therein lies a tale, for despite all the sound and fury of the Boxer Rebellion the casualties from this latest coup (113 killed and 581 wounded, mostly civilians) were remarkably low: loyalists and rebels alike tried their best not to hit each other...
...We want the Americans stay in Philippines forever," says 22-year-old Erlynn Canamon...
...Aquino admits that "the economic recovery has restored old fortunes more than it has touched the lives of the vast majority of the poor"—New Year's Eve William McGurn is the Washington bureau chief of National Review...
...At 2:00 a.m...
...The grounds of Aguinaldo themselves bear more resemblance to an old plantation than the headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines...
...But we can't find no job so we want Americans to handle things...
...It becomes easier to see how Wilma Tiamzon, a captured member of the central committee of the Communist party, escaped on Christmas day after mass—just a year after the chief of the Communist military insurgency escaped from the same place after attending a birthday party for his jailors...
...We like traffic jams and festas," says the editor of one of Manila's largest dailies...
...With the most beautiful women in the entire world, abundant reserves of good nature, and a faith that moved Marcos, this country could easily become a paradise of sorts, which it was about a generation ago before the World Bank and Co...
...An informal poll shows most of them approving of George Bush, but they make it clear that their hearts are with the Gipper...
...O f course, the want of a certain discipline does make itself felt...
...If there's a New Year's resolution in this, it might be that all this place needs is a little neglect...
...Better than Philippine government or Communists, right...
...In fact, although it looked like Sher-man's march to the sea it was far more serious than any mere coup: Filipinos celebrating the New Year...
...They ask why prices are going up and nothing gets done, and their questions reflect the seething popular dissatisfaction with the status quo...
...But none of this was allowed to ruin B P New Year's, and why should it...
...got their hands on it and raised the nation's debt from $3 billion then to almost $29 billion today, to the point where the Aquino government is forced to beg for new aid to pay for the old...
Vol. 23 • February 1990 • No. 2
