The Philippines Purging Marcos' Legacy

By Pico Iyer

Exactly one month after becoming President, Corazon Aquino appeared last week, clad in her trademark yellow, to announce her agenda for reviving democracy in the Philippines. Scrapping the 1973 constitution introduced by her predecessor, Ferdinand Marcos, and dissolving the effectively powerless National Assembly dominated by Marcos' followers, she imposed a provisional constitution that allows her to rule by decree until a new charter is agreed upon. Within 60 days, Aquino promised, she will appoint a committee to draft a fresh constitution. Three months after that, she hopes to put the document to a national plebiscite. If all goes well, a new legislature will be in place within a year. In the meantime, said Aquino, the provisional "Freedom Constitution" should allow a nation undermined by 20 years of Marcos' rule to "heal its wounds, restore its strength and enjoy the fruits of its newfound freedom."

While Aquino sought to purge the Marcos legacy at home, others were intently pursuing it abroad. The Swiss government stunned its starchy banking community by freezing all assets in numerous bank accounts, rumored to total in the hundreds of millions of dollars, belonging to Marcos, his family and associates. Never before had Switzerland issued such a sweeping order without an explicit request from an aggrieved government. An estimated $1 billion of Marcos' assets abroad, mostly in the U.S., have also been frozen. No one, however, was ready to predict that the paper trail would come to an end soon, or that Marcos would be easily brought to justice.

In fashioning the provisional constitution, Aquino hoped to stake out a middle ground between those who urged creation of a "revolutionary government" and those who agitated for maintaining "constitutional" rule. In her nine-page proclamation, the President stressed that she would retain all the rights guaranteed in the 1973 constitution (among them freedom of speech and assembly). The infamous Amendment Six, which allowed Marcos to claim emergency powers under martial law, was rendered moot because the proclamation gives Aquino full legislative powers. Justice Minister Neptali Gonzales, who helped frame the provisional constitution, pronounced the new government "revolutionary in origin, democratic in essence and transitory in character."

To no one's surprise, 65 newly jobless parliamentarians from Marcos' New Society Movement remained unpersuaded, accusing the President of dictatorial tendencies and excoriating the new plan as a "Magna Carta of enslavement." Blas Ople, who had served as Marcos' Labor Minister for 17 years, went so far as to charge, with more than a little hyperbole, that Aquino was claiming authority "more absolute, more authoritarian and more arbitrary than the powers gobbled up by the former President."

But there were even murmurs of dissent from Aquino's inner circle. Under the new constitution, said one minister, "we have the same situation as before --the concentration of power in one person, even though that person happens to be an angel or a saint." Other loyalists were disgruntled that the new plan had been drawn up by a very small group of counselors working independently of the Cabinet. "I have strong reservations about this," protested Local Government Minister Aquilino Pimentel. "I was never consulted." Even Vice President Salvador Laurel was not fully involved in determining the contents of the final draft. Indeed, he had gone through a ceremony in which he assumed the prime ministership just four hours before the post was abolished, together with the entire Assembly.

Such divisions within the new government could prove costly. One of Aquino's most urgent priorities is to end hostilities with the more than 16,000 guerrillas of the Communist New People's army. During her campaign, she promised a cease-fire as soon as she took office. But so far she has not addressed the issue formally. Meanwhile, under Chief of Staff General Fidel Ramos and Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, the military has continued its operations against the guerrillas. According to the government, there have been 173 encounters between troops and rebels since Aquino took office, resulting in 343 deaths. That is scarcely less than the average of 375 casualties each month during the last year of the Marcos era.

At the same time, Antonio Zumel, apparent chairman of the National Democratic Front, an umbrella group for various guerrilla factions, declared last week that Communist leaders were ready to open talks with the Aquino government "without preconditions," though he expressed skepticism about a cease-fire. "Comrades are asking if there have been any feelers from her," he said. "We want to know what's on her mind."

In Washington, the guerrillas' apparent determination to keep fighting has only compounded continuing U.S. concern about any deal whatsoever between the Philippine government and the Communists. "We are very skeptical about the N.P.A.'s sincerity," said a State Department official. On the whole, the Reagan Administration was relieved that Aquino's interim constitution brought an end to weeks of deliberation, but remained anxious about the problems ahead. "Mrs. Aquino was able to sweep aside the vestiges of Marcos' structure with a pen," observed a State Department official, "but how things get done is not yet clear."

Meanwhile, in his Hawaiian exile, Marcos was served his first subpoena, in connection with a civil case resulting from the 1981 killings of two anti- Marcos trade-union dispatchers in Seattle. The former Philippine President also continues to be named in a host of lawsuits around the U.S. As lawyers for the deposed dictator fended off legal actions, citizens of Davenport, Iowa, responded enthusiastically to a disk jockey's appeal to ease the plight of the Marcoses--sending 1,500 pairs of used footwear, including bowling shoes and swim fins, to replace the collection former First Lady Imelda left behind at Malacanang Palace. One hundred pairs were sent to Mrs. Marcos, the rest to the local Salvation Army.

The battle to bring Marcos to justice--and his millions back to his homeland --is fraught with difficulties. For one thing, the Philippines does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. For another, said Jovito Salonga, chairman of the Commission on Good Government, it will not be easy to disentangle the "layers of corporations" and the maze of intermediaries that Marcos used as a front. "Not once do you find the name of Marcos on any of the New York papers," said Salonga in a conversation with TIME editors in New York. "He's a very clever lawyer." The chase abroad promised to be no less complicated, in spite of the decisive action of the Swiss. "Some people talk about $79.4 million here in Switzerland, some talk about $1 billion," said Hans Mast, an executive vice president of Credit Suisse. "But how do you identify deposits as Marcos' assets?" Even if the Aquino government does pinpoint the holdings, it is unlikely to recover them until it has proved conclusively that they were illegally obtained, according to both Swiss and Philippine law.

As the commotion mounted, the Marcoses left Hickam Air Force Base after a month-long stay and moved into a $1.5 million beachfront estate in the exclusive eastern Honolulu suburb of Niu. The new home offers little of the imperial style to which the dethroned couple is accustomed: more than 50,000 cars a day roar along a four-lane highway just outside the house, while sundry beachcombers, joggers and fishermen can peer at the grounds from the nearby beach. One novel feature, however, may remind the exiles of their old Manila home. Within 24 hours of the Marcoses relocation, picketers appeared outside the walled compound, brandishing placards on which were scrawled such messages as DEATH TO MARCOS AND PUPPETS OF U.S. IMPERIALISM.

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Manila, with other bureaus