The Philippines Things Fall Apart

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

In their election campaigning against Ferdinand Marcos, Corazon Aquino and her vice-presidential running mate, Salvador Laurel, were often photographed kneeling together in prayer before church altars. Seeing the pious pair, some Filipinos quipped that the couple looked as though they were being married. Indeed, the Aquino-Laurel partnership was a political marriage, though merely one of convenience. He shared his well-greased political machine with her. She shared her enormous popularity with him. Little else.

Now they have nothing. Laurel announced last week that because he opposed many of Aquino's policies, he could not remain in his Cabinet post as Foreign Secretary, though he would retain the vice presidency. He complained bitterly + of having been treated as an outcast in her government. Using the Tagalog word for the mosquito netting draped over conjugal beds, Laurel said that Aquino had kept him "outside the kulambo."

The Aquino-Laurel divorce was only the latest sign that the President was still struggling to get a grip on an increasingly fractious government. A week earlier she had demanded the resignation of all 26 members of her Cabinet. Now advisers who had been at her side since the beginning of her tumultuous political career were departing Malacanang Palace. Among them were the leaders of the Cabinet factions whose intramural bickering had made ruling virtually impossible: Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo, her closest confidant, and Finance Secretary Jaime Ongpin, the industrialist whose expertise had given the country's debt renegotiations a needed dose of respectability.

Meanwhile, nearly a month after the violent mutiny of Colonel Gregorio ("Gringo") Honasan and 14 of the country's 86 army battalions, disaffection with Aquino among Philippine troops continued to grow. Playing for time, the President appears to have become heavily dependent on loyal officers in the armed forces. Contributing to the rising sense of danger, the Manila press crackled with new rumors of coups and palace intrigue.

Stability was further shattered by the assassination on Saturday of Leandro Alejandro, 27, leader of Bayan, perhaps the largest legal alliance of the Philippine left. Alejandro was shot at point-blank range by unidentified gunmen outside Bayan headquarters just two days before he was scheduled to lead an antigovernment rally. Summing up the air of unrest, Businessman Antonio Gatmaitan said, "Remember the old curse, 'May you live in interesting times'? I think this is it."

After announcing his "irrevocable" resignation as Foreign Secretary, Vice President Laurel accused Aquino of reneging on a pre-election agreement to allow him to run the government. Aquino had "admitted that she would be incapable of running it since she had no experience," Laurel complained. There seemed to be some basis to his claim. On the eve of the February 1986 election, a high-ranking Roman Catholic clergyman -- and a prominent Aquino backer -- told a visitor that since Aquino claimed to be only a "housewife," he expected her to step down a few months after the election and turn the presidency over to Laurel.

While Laurel denied he was joining the opposition, he blasted Aquino for lacking a clear-cut policy to defeat the 23,000 guerrillas of the Communist New People's Army. He argued for an all-out offensive against the N.P.A. The government, said Laurel, must "demonstrate political will and effort to unite the military and give its needs the highest financial priority." Failure to do that, he said, had led to Honasan's uprising and threatened to provoke a more serious coup attempt. Said Laurel: "The nation is on fire. If soldiers refuse to obey, we will all be out."

Laurel had made that case to Aquino earlier in the week during an unusual meeting at Malacanang between members of the two leaders' powerful families. According to palace insiders, the President was "unmoved" by Laurel's arguments. Aquino said she accepted Laurel's resignation "sadly" and went on to defend her insurgency policy as "a combination of military offensives, respect for democratic practices and support for economic programs that will uplift our people."

Aquino parted with others in her Cabinet with greater regret. Arroyo and Presidential Counsel Teodoro Locsin, her favorite speechwriter, had been accused of being hostile to the military and the business community. Their departure was widely hailed. Ongpin's firing was much less popular. Already nervous about a 28% drop in stock prices following Honasan's mutiny, the business community feared that Ongpin's departure would complicate negotiations over the country's $27 billion foreign debt. Thus there was some relief when Aquino gave the finance portfolio to former Public Works Minister Vicente Jayme, an Ongpin ally and a onetime banker. To replace Arroyo as executive secretary, Aquino took his advice and appointed Catalino Macaraig, an old classmate of Arroyo's. Observers expect the friction between the Arroyo and Ongpin camps may be defused by the low-key styles of their successors. At week's end the stock index rebounded sharply, rising 115.6 points to 809.6

The President had intended to make a single announcement of all revisions in her Cabinet. Instead, news of the cast changes dribbled out of the palace, reinforcing her reputation for vacillation. "I am not being indecisive," she felt compelled to declare. "I am doing my best to put up a team."

One group Aquino desperately wants on her team is the military. In a gesture toward the armed forces, the President last week appointed General Manuel Yan, a respected former armed forces Chief of Staff, to succeed Laurel as Foreign Secretary. Restiveness among the military remains perhaps the greatest threat to Aquino's government. According to some foreign officials, the military command knows where Honasan is holed up but refuses to seize him, fearing that the arrest will inflame tensions in the ranks.

Honasan continued to ignore calls for his surrender. Last week he stepped up his propaganda war and demanded that Aquino capitulate instead. He gave her a 30-day limit to form a ruling council made up mainly of opposition leaders sympathetic to his cause. In a taped message, Honasan said Aquino was "not in complete control. So she should be aided by the council, which shall temporarily govern the republic."

To counter Honasan's publicity blitz, General Fidel Ramos, the armed forces Chief of Staff, began one of his own. Ramos charged that the colonel, despite his fierce anti-Communist stance, had actually shirked duty in N.P.A.-infested combat zones. He said Honasan did not have enough supplies and manpower to launch another serious attack. But even Ramos was forced to admit that Honasan's popular appeal "is a long-range time bomb planted in the heart of the military."

There is a danger that Aquino's civilian opponents may ally with factions of the armed forces in an attempt to seize power. Already Juan Ponce Enrile, the Senate minority leader and Aquino's chief rival on the right, has the tacit support of Honasan and his renegades. Property owners who oppose Aquino's land-reform proposals are said to be aligning themselves with the rebels. Vice President Laurel, says David Wurfel, a Philippines expert at Canada's University of Windsor, "appears to be running for election by the military. He wants to pose himself as the civilian protector of a military regime."

While the President has effectively sidelined other contenders for power, including Laurel and Enrile, she finds herself increasingly dependent on Ramos, the other major hero of the anti-Marcos revolution. The general, who has helped frustrate five coup attempts against the President, may have called in his debts last week. When it became clear that Aquino wanted to keep her friend Arroyo in the Cabinet -- and to shunt Ramos into a less strategic post, or perhaps even an ambassadorship -- the general balked. Amid a sudden rumor that loyal generals would stage a coup if Arroyo was retained, Aquino relented. "If Cory had her choice, as she used to," said a Western analyst in Manila, "she would have kept Joker on and kicked Ramos upstairs. But to her dismay, she found out she could do neither." On TV last week, she assured her people that she was "on top of the situation." But as the chaos around her deepens, Filipinos fear there may be little Aquino can do on her own.

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Manila