Rallying the Body Politic

...Whatever happens, it concluded, "the armed struggle remains central to the seizure of political power...

...The demonstration may have been Communistinspired, but the Communists could hardly have exaggerated the underlying discontent...

...So it's back to politics as usual in Manila...

...Disillusionment with Aquino as a serious "revolutionary" was in evidence at a rally I attended in Malolos, a provincial capital about 30 miles north of Manila...

...A Roman Catholic priest declared that the President "represents the elite of society"—a view held by a significant sector of the Church...

...At the other end of the spectrum, the equally implacable Enrile is entering the contest on a slate featuring a number of erstwhile Marcos allies...

...Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez, 48, had no sooner concluded a much ballyhooed press conference—replete with mind-numbing charts and graphs —on his ambitious plans for turning millions of hectares over to impoverished farmers, than Aquino's aides began dropping his name as a senatorial candidate...

...Besides, the quest for the Marcos billions promises to dwindle into a never-ending succession of lawsuits, climaxed periodically by overpublicized retrievals of a few million here and there, amid rising questions about what is happening to the wealth once the government gets its hands on it...

...How can the government function effectively if the people running it are jumping ship in a great display of campaign showmanship...

...That means endless conversations over tea and coffee about who is doing what to whom, and beer-drenched meetings into the dawn for plotting strategy against various opposition threats— like Bias Ople, Marcos' one-time labor minister, and Juan Ponce "Johnnie" Enrile, Aquino's former defenseminister and a leader of the "snap revolution" that forced Marcos to flee...

...Enrile dissociated himself from the Channel 7 Coup, yet left no question that he maintains close ties with an intra-Army faction hostile to Aquino known as the Reform the Armed Forces of the Philippines Movement (RAM), and he has repeatedly predicted problems among military dissenters...

...Party organizers, admitting their uncompromising policies may result in the government winning over some Leftists "on the periphery" of the CPP, promised that a hard core of 23,500 armed guerrillas would be ready to counter any offensive staged by the military...

...If it also means suspension of the serious business of reform, that's easy to rationalize: Aquino must do well in the May congressional elections, and in the local elections next August, to "solidify her power...

...The real message of Mendiola was that the government's torpor on land reform could not continue...

...Salonga himself, a senator before Marcos disbanded the old legislature in 1972 and declared martial law, leaves behind what is undoubtedly the most powerful entity to appear in the Aquino era: a commission with several billion dollars worth of productive assets— ranging from factories to farmlands— that it must either operate or unload...

...it bumbles along much as it did under Marcos, with bureaucrats administering a deteriorating structure that is proverbially rife with corruption and infighting...

...For now, they may be sufficient to heal the country's wounds...

...Charges of widespread electoral cheating on Aquino's behalf could be the excuse for an insurrection, possibly beginning with the long-feared attempt to set up a base for Marcos in his home province of Ilocos Norte...

...This applies to the regime of Corazon C. Aquino no less than it did to that of her predecessor, Ferdinand E. Marcos...

...Their legitimate front, the Party of the People (PNB) is putting up a senatorial slate that will include labor leader Crispin Beltran, one-time NPA fighter Bernabe "Commander Dante" Buscayno, and Romeo Capulong, attorney for the National Democratic Front (which comprises the CPP and the NPA...

...He dismissed the plebiscite out of hand as totally rigged...

...A foothold in the new Congress would guarantee the Left a forum for spreading its radical viewswhile the fighting goes on as usual in the countryside...

...Their decision was announced in a special one-page edition of their newspaper Liberation handed out at an extremely opportune occasion—a memorial meeting that was being held for 18 people killed two weeks earlier when Filipino Marines fired into a mob of several thousand demonstrators on the Mendiola Bridge, one of the approaches to the Malacaftang Palace...

...Where deemed tactically advantageous, the Communists consider the ballot box a fertile battleground, too, and they plan to be on the firing line in the May elections...

...Glib Manila columnists dubbed it the "yellow army," borrowing Aquino's campaign theme color...

...In the meantime, her brother Jose Cojuangco—one of the secrets to her hold on power—was training a growing private army to guard the estate against bandits and guerrillas...

...Until now, Aquino has been pretty lucky...

...His lieutenants will no doubt try to ram through at least the rudiments of land reform...

...A million-member Leftwing umbrella group called the New Patriotic Alliance is fielding a list of candidates as well, headed by fanners' organizer Tadeo...

...Among them are the aging Arturo Tolentino, Marcos' vice presidential running mate in the February 1986 election and leader of the comic-opera Manila Hotel coup attempt last July...

...Partypropagandists had no problem blaming Ramos—who openly deplored the shooting—as the leader of a military establishment allegedly waging a vicious, vindictive war against "the people...

...THE CHALLENGE IN THE PHILIPPINES-1 Rallying the Body Politic By Donald Kirk It is a commentary on the political process here that most Filipino leaders would rather orate in the Senate halls than run a vital government agency...

...Now is the time, the newsletter went on, to "build up our forces, weaken our enemies, win over more allies—and rally the majority of the Filipino people...

...Young guerrilla members of the Communist New People's Army (NPA), whom I met in a nearby village, vowed to keep fighting regardless of Aquino's standing...

...Military officers and Communists then charged one another with having exploited the cease-fire to build up their respective forces for a new round of bloodshed...

...He has his sights set on Malacafiang Palace—more specifically, on gaining Aquino's endorsement in the next presidential election, scheduled for 1992...

...Far from solidifying Aquino's power, therefore, a decisive victory in May could persuade both Rightists and Leftists to intensify their separate revolts...

...Blas Ople, who in recent months has appeared downright cordial toward Aquino's government...

...Aquino remains true to the ideals that brought her to power: "open democracy," "nonviolence," "compassion...

...Indeed, they are using the threat of such an offensive as a pretext for expanding their areas of operation...

...She would, she said, fully comply with the government's program —when it came time to implement it...

...The President herself waffled on whether she approved the breakup of her large family holding in Tarlac Province, north of Manila...

...That argument may actually have some merit...

...Nor did anyone believe Aquino, as a member of one of the nation's richest land-owning families, was altogether pleased with the emotional fervor generated by Jaime Tadeo, the fasttalking leader of the farmers' union, as he demanded fulfillment of longstanding pledges...

...They cannot rely on government...

...Employing a maze of front groups, the CPP wants to keep their loyalty while gradually undermining the props that hold up Aquino's shaky throne...

...and Francisco "Kit" Tatad, a former Marcos information minister turned Marcos critic...

...The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), operating from clandestine, presumably shifting bases in the hills of central Luzon north of Manila, has been reluctant to attack the President directly...

...To head off the danger, Aquino could decide to turn the elections into a pretext for getting tough with both Communists and her opponents on the Right...

...Take the timing of theabortive revolt preceding the February 2 constitutional plebiscite: Nothing could have better convinced voters that they should give their President as much help as possible in deterring future efforts by Marcos' allies to regain power...

...The plot theory seems rather far-fetched...

...Another revealing departure from the Aquino administration was that of the man in charge of what may be its single most imponant domestic program, land reform...

...The name adopted by this group, Grand Alliance for Democracy, indicates its diversity and few observers here doubt that its members would turn immediately to fighting one another in the unlikely event that they ever gained control of the Senate, let alone the government...

...Enrile hinted as much when he qualified his acceptance of the vote for the Constitution by citing what he claimed were numerous irregularities...

...It is fearful of alienating millions of moderate Leftists who continue to view her as the great hope for far-reaching changes in their society...

...The new situation," said a CPP newsletter, calls for "completely overthrowing the reactionary ruling system and achieving national democratic goals...

...Farmers must follow their own destiny...

...In the weeks after the ceasefireexpired, scores died in "massacres" committed by both sides...

...Among them is Jovito Salonga, chairman of the presidential Commission on Good Government that is responsible for retrieving Marcos' "hidden wealth" plus the holdings of his cronies...

...Aquino has said she won't run again when her current six-year term, won in the "snap election" of 1986, runs out...

...The "Channel 7 Coup"—named after the TV station occupied by rebel soldiers for several days—was so useful to Aquino that Communists and Leftists charged her Army Chief of Staff, General Fidel V. Ramos, with stage-managing the incident...

...Yet the title of Senator remains more alluring for Salonga, who at 66 will be a senior statesman on the Aquino slate...

...Marcos, in Hawaii, was less subtle...

...Should Aquino's candidates win all or most of the 24 Senate seats, the Right would undoubtedly denounce the election as a fraud and vow to fight the regime by other means...

...But the Communists, always in search of a villain, have been taking aim at Ramos ever since Aquino dumped their previous bogey Enrile last fall amid reports —never quite confirmed—of an imminent coup...

...he shouted to the assemblage...

...The PNB has become a refuge for the Communist political prisoners freed by Aquino shortly after she cameto power...

...But as her even-tempered reactions to the coups have demonstrated, getting tough is not her style...

...Marcos, moreover, still has a special appeal to some of the troops, notably those from his native Ilocano region in northern Luzon...

...As commissioner he has no crowds to cheer him, no rallies to lead...

...By any standards, Tolentino should be in prison for holing up with rebel troops in the Manila Hotel, and in many countries Enrile's "RAM boys" and Marcos' loyalists in the Army would already have been court-martialed and shot...

...Later, perhaps, she and her backers may discover that radical surgery is the only cure—that is, if they have not been excised themselves first...

...Its leader, Jose " Joma" Maria Sison, acted as the Community Party chief, while Commander Dante was serving a 10-year prison term—almost all of it in solitary confinement— for helping to organize the NPA in the early 1970s...

...While the President goes on about the need for land reform, a negotiated peace with the Communists, and unity in the Armed Forces, the real concern around Malacafiang Palace these days is the election in May for a brand new Senate and House of Representatives...

...Donald Kirk, a longtime contributor and veteran observer of Asian affairs, is now a correspondent for USA Today...

...Ramos, for his part, appears dutifully loyal to the President but lacks the charisma to unify the military establishment and wage war against the guerrillas...

...Several top Aquino aides have resigned to join the "government" slate that she confidently expects will win all 24 seats in the upper chamber...

...The strength Aquino gained from the plebiscite victory moved the Communists to break off the peace talks and refuse to extend the 60-day cease-fire when it concluded the week after the voting...

...Alvarez' long-term interests, however, are not quite that down to earth...

...The answer is that it can't...