Editorials
COMMONWEAL Last call for Cory? The cheering for Cory Aquino has stopped. Inertia, criticism, and rumors have set in. And violence. Those millions of Filipinos who supported Mrs. Aquino in last...
...Some smoke remains as thick and stealthy as ever...
...If Aquino were to fall — either to the NPA or (the more likely case) to the military, who would then be fighting the Communists — the ultimate cost and entanglement of the U.S...
...Thus, in the early 1980s, a major U.S...
...The United States must recognize the urgency of stepping up its foreign aid, despite accusations on the part of some Filipino politicians of "meddling...
...Wages for many unskilled laborers do not meet subsistence requirements, and land is owned by fewer than 20 percent of the farmers who till it...
...would be far beyond today' s " generous'' aid proposals...
...It should persuade the organizations involved to renegotiate the Philippines' debt...
...Yet all of these will be for nothing if tensions mount and the Aquino government is undermined...
...Moreover, they are demoralized by losses in the daily battle against New People's Army guerrillas whose numbers appear to be growing...
...Gregorio Honasan's surprise coup attempt last August...
...Despite real economic growth last year, over 5 percent, and the lowest inflation rate the country has seen for years, the Philippines is saddled with $28 billion in foreign debt and has severe unemployment rates...
...The national armed forces are undersupplied and poorly trained...
...Only the most obvious and concerted effort by the U.S...
...The much-needed effort to restore the broad-based coalition that originally backed her will require a two-pronged strategy: (1) a reinforced military effort against the Communists and (2) a broad agenda for social reform...
...It is to President Aquino's credit that she would never make as good a dictator as her predecessor...
...The R.J...
...Her collaborative leadership style lends itself well to democracy...
...But as the Packard Commission reported a year after its recommendations for streamlining defense procurement had met with little progress, breaking through some other clouds is harder to do...
...The smoke-filled back room may have finally been relegated to the past...
...The U.S...
...Overall, 60 percent of Filipinos live in poverty...
...But there have been other spinoffs of the Stealth project...
...These critics evade the conclusion, however, that the Philippines would be better off, economically or politically, under an NPA dictatorship than an Aquino democracy...
...Y.), Senator Cranston (D-Calif...
...now says that its new smokeless cigarette should be on the market in some places next year...
...The plane's official name, the Advance Technology Bomber, is harder to say than' 'plausible deniability," and its production costs are as well protected as the seal of confession...
...But social reform, too, cannot be achieved for free...
...the seeds of Filipino "death squads" have been planted in the vigilante groups formed to strike back at the guerrillas...
...Since then, Aquino has built a considerable record of accomplishments: the creation of a new constitutional government, a freely elected Congress, the break-up of sugar and coconut trading monopolies, and the enhancement of labor's right to organize and strike, to name a few...
...Aquino in last February's election, with 75 percent of the vote, did not take to the streets on her behalf during Col...
...message to the officers during the Honasan uprising that Washington would cut all funds to the nation if Aquino were ousted, many of these officers know well that the U.S...
...In the U.S., development of the Stealth bomber is topsecret, top-dollar, and top-gun...
...Honasan remains in hiding, supported by sympathizers, President Aquino — suffering from mixed reviews of her first two years in office — is fighting for her political survival and, with it, the survival of democracy in the Philippines...
...Like the government's debt, there is also but one company developing the Stealth project—the Northrop Corporation— and accountability is sometimes sketchy...
...We think this should be next year's most pressing foreign aid disbursement...
...should enlist Japan as a second major source of financing...
...corruption at local levels is pervasive...
...And the New York Times reports that the Air Force will spend $37 billion (in low-flying 1981 dollars) on 132 of the bombers...
...Only speedy initiation of sweeping social reforms — not susceptible to the compromise, stalling, and fierce private resistance that marked this year's land reform fiasco — would restore confidence among the impoverished populace that their new democratic government is a better advocate for justice than the guerrillas...
...But Aquino mustn't let her government's vision be limited to defeat of the Communists...
...Where will the requisite money come from...
...and the USSR for strategic arms verification while simultaneously constructing more evasive nuclear-capable submarines and nearly invisible fighter bombers...
...Yet, given the budget constraints facing the U.S., the battle for aid may fail or be compromised into inadequacy...
...Since that time, sudden advances in Soviet radar techniques have forced the Air Force to search for revised ways of painting its bombers, and for developing whole new lines of radar-canceling exterior coatings...
...Nor did the Filipino army rally quickly around her...
...Americans should recognize the penny-wise and pound-foolish character of holding back on aid...
...product designer began a top-secret research project known as "Operation Black Hole...
...If Aquino, still the most popular single figure in the Philippines, is to stave off the next coup attempt, she will have to take firm and fast measures (neither has been her strong suit) to restore to the extent possible that fragile coalition of military, church leaders, masses of rural poor, anti-Marcos elites, and middle-class professionals, which catapulted her to the presidency in 1986...
...A bone, however, will not substitute fora well-planned, well- financed military policy...
...That project now sems to have borne fruit, and leaked reports of its success recently sent the company's stock rocketing on pre-Black Monday Wall Street...
...Instead, while Col...
...It requires a skillful reading of government appropriations requests to determine what money might be going to the project, for the ATB is never mentioned by name...
...If the planes are as evasive as the project has been to public scrutiny, they may indeed "take our breath away...
...Reynolds Co...
...In a recent interview, CIA Director William Webster estimated that Stealth technology has cost over $1 million an hour, prime rates indeed...
...Because the guerrilla insurgency is an expression of rural deprivation and oppression, because many of its cadres were driven into their rebellion under the Marcos dictatorship or confirmed in it by military brutality, it sometimes enjoys a degree of sympathy among critics of the Philippine status quo...
...So far, she has looked into the treasury's empty cupboard and suggested a military pay raise...
...to strengthen Aquino's government, by deeds as well as words, will be convincing...
...Even so, she would do well to acknowledge that by abdicating executive leadership to Congress — as in her hands-off approach to this year's land reform proposal — she fueled the very charges of'' weakness'' and'' indecisiveness'-' which critics now hurl against her...
...Social problems are too compelling...
...Like the national debt, no one knows for sure how silent and how deep this one runs, yet everyone presumes the costs will fly still higher and further...
...And it should make clear that it is democracy, not just anti-Communism, we support...
...Northrop reported earlier this year that it was unable to account for 780 classified documents relating to the bomber program...
...supported Marcos year after year precisely because of the Communist insurgents...
...THE WAGES OF STEALTH The two-track approach to nuclear arms control being trod by the superpowers—build up and then talk, talk but build up— presently finds a mirror image in the concern of both the U.S...
...a cabinet minister and a left-wing politician were recently murdered...
...Implement643 ing such a strategy, while it will foster the allegience of certain segments of Filipino society, runs the unavoidable risk of alienating others...
...At times, this hope arises undetected from the most unlikely quarters...
...Despite the U.S...
...and others are right to garner bipartisan support for more funding...
...And if democracy is going to be defended, it should be done effectively by a well-disciplined and equipped military...
...Congressional investigators, who of course asked not to be identified, said they were particularly concerned because a Northrop employee associated with the project had been arrested in 1984 attempting to smuggle top-secret papers to Soviet agents...
...Thirty-five million dollars was "rushed" to Manila in October...
...But hope springs eternal, and scientists may yet develop technological solutions to some of our most vexing problems...
...Perhaps this is "Marcos's revenge" upon the United States...
...Fifty police and military officers have also been killed this year...
...Aquino will have to provide adequate supplies and training for the army...
...Representative Solarz (D-N...
...The likely alternative, in fact, is not semi-Maoist revolution but a military mutiny...
Vol. 114 • November 1987 • No. 20
