Still the gauntlet
Hillenbrand, Barry
He says that the aim of nonviolent civilian defense is to make a society unrulable to would-be tyrants and aggressors by applying massive, selective noncooperation and defiance. "With effort,...
...advisers, maneuvers, aid, and arms as well...
...For on February 11, President Ronald Reagan had declai~d in Washington that the election had been fair, despite cheating on both sides, and that in the best interest of democracy and a two-party system, vanquished Aquino should work with the triumphant Marcos...
...Marcos has lost the business community, the middle class, the common man," said opposition Senator Eresto Maceda a week after the election...
...English is the common language: the language of instruction in schools, the legal language, the language of debate in the Batasan, the language of the newspapers and television, the language of love songs...
...These aren't names at all...
...The church and the Americans have deserted him...
...Behind a sound truck with a statue of the Blessed Virgin on top, a knot of people stood praying the rosary...
...But no matter how much enthusiasm the business community has for her, it will, as prudent investor, wait and see whether Aquino can fashion political stability out of the present uncertainty...
...As the debate inside dragged on into the late evening hours, some on the lawn wrapped themselves in light blankets and slept...
...The U.S...
...Other key Filipino institutions and mythologies are intertwined with America...
...the bishops issued a letter condemning the election as a fraud...
...as well as the Soviet Union...
...Then February 1986 will not have been just a remarkable interlude but, like Lent itself, a fertile plateau from which there is no turning back...
...The suddenness and ease with which he departed startled even the Aquino people who had been designing a long and elaborate plan of civil disobedience to wrest power from him...
...I HAGGLING PRO & CON The war against the Nicaraguan government is escalating, and President Reagan's request for $100 million in aid for the contras -- nearly four times the allocation Congress approved last year -- doesn't begin to tell the story...
...All that remains is the military...
...The $27 million in nonlethal aid designated by Congress last year left most of the contras hovering demoralized in Honduras, still undisciplined and answerable to charges of torture made by Amnesty International...
...How much more of what...
...Any Filipino with cash to invest headed straight for opportunities abroad...
...Instead, Mr...
...14 March 1986:135...
...Respect for freedom of the press -- neglected during the martial law period is high...
...The Catholic church was convinced...
...In 1983, with its foreign debt standing at $25 billion, the Philippines declared a moratorium on the repayment of some foreign loans...
...It's as though we live on a planet called "Soil" or "Dirt...
...The Caraballeda plan would prohibit U.S...
...The Philippine economy is a wreck...
...The IMF rescued the courtCommonweal: 134try from receivership...
...These goals sound like those Mr...
...Half the people of the Philippines do not have sufficient work and survive only through the remittances of Filipinos, working both in the U.S...
...She formed a union with Doy Laurel, the leader of the opposition party, UNIDO, a party long in competition with Ninoy Aquino's own opposition party, Laban...
...Otherwise, how will the story differ next year when the president begins his fundraising...
...and the Middle East, and the extended family system which cushions the burden of individual poverty...
...Sympathetic critics suggest that Aquino will replace the Marcos group of cronies and family members, who dominated and destroyed the Filipino economic and political fabric, with a group of Aquino cronies and family members...
...It should cause those outside South Africa to increase their pressure on the apartheid government...
...and respect political pluralism and human rights...
...Real unemployment, as opposed to the lower official numbers published by the government, is estimated by economists at between 15 and 20 percent...
...With effort, risks, and costs," he concludes, it is possible for people "to make themselves politically indigestible . . . . That process has already begun...
...archivesjust weeks before the election...
...BARRY FIILLENBRAND (Barry Hillenbrand, a correspondent for Time based in the Persian Gulf, covered the Philippine elections...
...and to suppose that they are names is to betray an extremely vulgar quality of imagination...
...Cory was not going to win...
...They are only now sweeping up the confetti...
...at the massive fraud and intimidation which won Marcos the election forced Reagan to reconsider...
...In the last two years, clouded by IMF regulations and blown by political instability resulting from the murder of Ninoy Aquino, new economic activity has been nearly nonexistent...
...While mending the Philippines' balance of payments ailments (good news for bankers), this bitter IMF pill pushed the economy deeper into crisis (bad news for workers...
...end support forguerrilla armies...
...Is it as unspecified and subject to prolongation as it seems...
...They clearly need both our prayer and substantive action...
...Most economists see flat growth this year and a slight upturn next, if Aquino succeeds in calming the nation...
...Sneered a Filipino businessman, "The Americans always force a man out on the plank, but before they push him off, they faint...
...The task of rebuilding the economy, as difficult as it may be, may be easier than the task of constructing a solid political base for her new administration...
...The gross national product declined 5.3 percent in 1984 and 3.9 percent in 1985...
...But that is only half of what worries many Latin American nations...
...It's too early to say...
...Domestic capital formation was minus 37.9 percent in 1984 and minus 14.5 percent in 1985...
...In one sense the struggle was curious because Marcos and Aquino were battling over the captaincy of a damaged and sinking ship...
...If Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus can have moons with such picturesque names as Io, Titan, and Oberon, why shouldn't Earth also have a fancy name for its moon...
...That is the coraztn, the heart of the matter...
...Perhaps...
...freeze the region's military buildup...
...suspend foreign military maneuvers...
...But it offers not only the highest gains -- regional peace -- but requires the least monetary expenditure and toll of human life...
...Just what is the longrange plan for U.S...
...Was there any relation between NAMFREL, the well-funded citizens' group which fought so valiantly .--- and vainly -- to prevent Marcos from stealing the election, and the CIA, which had bankrolled a similar group with the same name in a previous Philippine ejection...
...AQUINO BEGINS TO GOVERN T HREE DAYS AFTER the February 7 election, the speaker of the Batasan Pambansa, the Philippine National Assembly, swung his game leg up the several steps which led to the podium elevated high above the floor of the Assembly, and with a heavy bang of his gavel declared that the Batasan was convened for its constitutionally appointed task of 14 March 1986:133counting the votes in the contentious presidential election...
...No one doubts that Aquino can command the assistance of a wide and talented group of advisers, but the troubling question is whether Aquino can assemble her group quickly enough and whether she will be able to provide firm : leadership over these eclectic -- albeit talented -- allies...
...It is obvious to everyone that tossing $70 million to the contras for military assistance won't bring about a Sandinista defeat -- the administration's still unstated, but transparent, goal...
...The people knew, instinctively, that Marcos's show of legitimacy was false...
...will have to live with a dangerous "Soviet and Cuban bases on the mainland of Latin America...
...Shultz listed in his talk to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, March 2, but his goals would only limit Nicaragua and its allies...
...Only the hatred of Marcos kept them together...
...Others sat about small fires, talking and listening to guitar players...
...It is the open-endedness of this scenario that should lift every American eyebrow...
...Of several minds: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...No wonder we have so little planetary self-respect...
...The administration must be made to answer the question precisely, and before one penny of aid is considered for transfer from the defense budget this year...
...After all, Aquino generated support from bt~siness and financial groups because Marcos, the provincial upstart, had cut this traditional elite out of power and influence...
...The military took another day to get organized, and three days later Marcos was gone...
...After all, who cares about blowing up a planet with so ignominious a handle...
...It is difficult to explain simply why everything the Americans do and say about the Philippines has such tremendous impact in Manila...
...Filipino parents send their brightest child off to law school because Filipinos are as obsessed as Americans with litigation and legality...
...If logic prevailed, the loser of the election should have inherited the Philippine economy...
...Could the Aquino revolution be merely the restoration of the old elites...
...The Filipinos share the American faith ~n education as a means for upward mobility...
...The political uncertainties of the country kept bankers and investors sitting on their checkbooks...
...and the Philippines share a bond which was welded together by the fire of the Second World War and not broken by Philippine independence in 1946...
...They fear the rampant militarization of Latin America and the encroaching intervention by both superpowers: the U.S...
...The Caraballeda plan (named for the city in Venezuela where it was signed January 12) calls for negotiations: to remove all foreign military advisers...
...Laurel has been appointed prime minister, and other oppositionists, including members of Ninoy's party, have been given key positions...
...A kinship exists...
...Even the committed core of Philippine nationalists, who deplore the Filipino reverence for all things American (known locally as the "little brown brother" syndrome) admit that perhaps 40 percent of the people in any plebiscite would vote for statehood...
...For an instant that evening it was possible to stray from the road of hard political logic and believe that perhaps Aquino could actually win in the Batasan count, that truth, honesty, righteousness -- all heavily on Aquino's side -- could somehow prevail against the forces of raw political strength that President Ferdinand E. Marcos had marshaled inside the hall...
...But by the following morning the cold reality of politics prevailed...
...Will Aquino be able to turn the economy around...
...The Reagan statement had a stunning effect...
...Could it have been mere chance that all those war records damaging to Marcos came dribbling out of the U.S...
...But even encouraging upward movements of the economists' bar graphs will not immediately improve the simple lives of the nation's millions of poor people who turned out en masse to cheer Aquino when she toured the provinces during the campaign...
...Why not...
...In the days following Marcos's victory in the Batasan, Aquino and her associates continually pounded the theme of the illegitimacy of the Marcos election...
...Aquino has worked a number of impressiv e political miracles in recent months...
...The Nicaraguan government has taken recent repressive measures against the Roman Catholic church (including closing its radio station) and against the press and the public -- by reinstating "emergency" powers...
...The Marcos people, who had stage-managed a small anti-American demonstration outside the Manila Hotel when Senator Richard Lugar was condemning election fraud at a press conference on, February 10, were suddenly brimming with pro-American sentiments and suggesting that Aquino join a newly devised Council of State...
...Every Filipino, it seems, has a relative living somewhere in the States...
...respect the selfdetermination and territorial sovereignty of each country...
...This is as it should be...
...Secretary of State George Shultz is worried that we (the U.S...
...Clearly, something must be done, but what...
...Cory's going to win, isn't she...
...Finally, the accomplishments of the Philippines' bishops, speaking in concert for human rights, and unrestrained by the Vatican's mediating caution, should become a model for other such episcopal bodies...
...I I I ON NAMING THE MOON THE LAW OF UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES A WITFY FELLOW who lives in my home town recently made a pubtlic proposal that a great international contest be conducted to find a name for the moon...
...Didn't the Americans goad Marcos into calling the snap election...
...To those who say that the moon already has ~t name -namely, "the Moon" -- he replies that calling the moon "the Moon" is like calling your dog "Dog" or your cat "Cat...
...The army uses Soviet-made helicopters and other supplies, and depends heavily upon foreign military advisers, 7,500 of them from Cuba...
...asked a young college student, her eyes bright with the hope which had characterized Aquino supporters during the two-month campaign...
...The Batasan, controlled by a large Marcos majority, would bull its way forward to confirm the false tallies from the regional voting centers...
...The opposition people were devastated...
...Underemployment, as dreadful a problem as unemployment, is estimated at between 20 to 40 percent...
...While personal fondness and political respect grew between Laurel and Aquino during the campaign, they now have more than a campaign to manage: they have to run a government...
...they're rifles for classes in which our individual dogs, cats, and moons fall...
...Congressional outrage in the U.S...
...Come to think of it, "Earth" itself isn't such a classy name...
...The American withdrawal of support from Marcos was an essential and necessary ingredient in engineering Marcos's downfall...
...army in the last three years -- but a whole lot more . . . . More...
...Nearly forty years after independence, a statehood movement still has a life of its own in the Philippines...
...Reagan has simply misplaced his effective haggling skills: they belong not on national television, to swell public sympathy as pressure against Congress, but at the bargaining table...
...Food vendors materialized selling corn, meats, soft drinks...
...More importantly, overnight, without a single act by a Filipino, the balance of Philippine politics had altered...
...Opposition parties in the Philippines squabble with the intensity and bitterness of half-brothers...
...Diplomacy has its risks...
...She now hopes to initiate projects to provide all the small towns of the nation with clean and safe well water as a simple symbolic gesture of her commitment to the poor...
...Couple this with a 2.8 percent increase in population each year, and the depressing results are roughly a 7.5 percent decline in per capita income in 1984 and a 6.3 percent decline in 1985...
...The interaction goes beyond the usual need of a former colony to seek validity from the former colonial power...
...He once again began pushing Marcos toward the end of the plank, denying Marcos the legitimacy he needed...
...It should be taken to heart by the people of Chile...
...In return for standby credits, the IMF imposed austerity measures on the Philippine government, limiting, for example, money supply, government spending, and budget deficits...
...Sandinista strength is not responsible for these problems...
...They had come to believe that the Americans were committed to dumping Marcos...
...The administration's argument is not without substance: the Sandinistas have moved closer toward the Soviets...
...For victory, the contras would need not only more American military advisers and the new airfield now being built in Honduras -- the sixth constructed by the U.S...
...The root of the problem was investment confidence...
...Now Reagan was back supporting Marcos...
...She enjoys the warm enthusiasm and confidence of the business community -- a curious fact considering Marcos kept calling Aquino a Communist...
...Or will the stunning and stimulating victory of simple democracy lead to new politics in the Philippines...
...This perhaps explains why the arms race is out of control...
...Outside the modern Batasan building, hundreds of the supporters of Cory Aquino gathered on broad lawns to keep a vigil...
...Those who speak and act dally for nonviolence in that blood-soaked land are a prophetic, diminishing minority, assailed on all sides...
...involvement in Nicaragua...
...In effect, the Americans were withdrawing their support for Aquino, which admittedly had been indirect, and were placing the crown of legitimacy on Marcos...
...Anti-Americanism is seldom encountered in the Philippines except in certain urban intellectual circles, and even there it is muted and bears no resemblance to the strident forms of anti-Americanism found, say, in Latin America...
...But Reagan was not allowed to remain unconscious very long,and once again a shift in an American position caused a significant movement in Filipino politics...
...But all the power and influence of the Americans was not potent enough, in itself, to force Marcos out...
...We should listen to their concerns...
...Doesn't this proposal deserve the serious attention now being devoted to the plea for increased contra aid...
...That tour reinforced in her, a woman born to the wealth of sugar plantation ownership, her compassion for the poor...
...The Philippines STILL THE GAUNTLET MRS...
...The model of the Philippines, one of prayer and action, should be emulated elsewhere...
...Shultz dismissed the proposal made to him in February by eight Latin American foreign ministers -- endorsed by thirteen Latin American nations, the European Economic Community, and Japan...
Vol. 113 • March 1986 • No. 5
