The Philippines Cory, Coups and Corruption

By John Greenwald

"No favors, no excuses." That was the motto Corazon Aquino vowed to follow after her People Power movement toppled the corrupt regime of Ferdinand Marcos. But in the tumultuous four years since Aquino became President, charges of incompetence and graft have increasingly tainted her own government. When rebellious soldiers launched the seventh abortive coup against Aquino on Dec. 1, their most pointed complaints focused on the administration's failure to deliver basic services and on allegations of corruption among the President's wealthy and influential relatives.

The charges, magnified by the Manila rumor mill, have inflicted serious political damage. While the President herself is considered incorruptible, critics accuse her of turning a blind eye to family and friends who are said to be enriching themselves at the public's expense. "What good is a Blessed Virgin Mary if she is surrounded by Sodom and Gomorrah?" asks one disillusioned official. In a December speech after the coup attempt, even Jaime Cardinal Sin, Aquino's most important supporter, warned of "a social explosion" unless Aquino swiftly defused "unceasing reports of the abusive roles of presidential relatives."

To regain public confidence in the wake of the abortive coup, Aquino last week sacked nine of 19 Cabinet ministers in the third such shake-up of her presidency. The Cabinet changes, acknowledged press secretary Adolfo Azcuna, were prompted "by the same reasons, perhaps, that precipitated the coup." None of the ousted ministers had been accused of corruption, but some of their departments were widely considered ineffective, particularly Justice, Transportation and Education, where services had virtually broken down. Aquino also overhauled the Agrarian Reform Department, which has largely failed to deliver on her election promise of land redistribution.

To many Filipinos, however, the reshuffling looked too modest to silence claims of scandal in high places. Though many of those tales flow from flimsily documented stories in the Manila press, which now enjoys unprecedented freedom, Filipinos follow them avidly. A frequent target of reports is Aquino's brother Jose ("Peping") Cojuangco Jr., a wealthy and powerful congressman. Shortly after Aquino took office, newspaper stories charged that Cojuangco had helped some of his cronies gain control of a lucrative cargo-handling business; he is also suspected of using family ties to get jobs for friends in Manila casinos. Cojuangco has denied any wrongdoing, and neither he nor any other member of the Aquino clan has been charged with a crime.

Yet lack of prosecution means little in a country where the rich and powerful are perceived to be above the law. "It would take a first-class fool to testify against someone like Peping Cojuangco," explains Blas Ople, executive vice president of the opposition Nacionalista Party and a former Minister of Labor under Marcos.

In one of the few corruption cases the authorities have pursued, Cojuangco's wife Margarita was suspected of having taken a $1 million bribe from an Australian businessman last year to help him obtain a gambling-casino license. In the end, the National Bureau of Investigation filed no charges: the probers said the Australian had been duped by a woman who impersonated Cojuangco's wife.

Critics often denounce Aquino's first creation in office, the Presidential Commission on Good Government, as a bastion of ineptitude. Charged with the recovery of up to $10 billion that Marcos is said to have looted from the treasury, the commission has recovered nearly $1 billion so far but has been accused of abusing its powers. In one case, for example, Ricardo ("Baby") Lopa, an Aquino brother-in-law who controlled a profitable Nissan auto- assembly plant and 38 other companies before they were seized by the Marcos regime in the early 1970s, was allowed to buy the firms back for only $227,000 within days after Aquino became President. A public outcry forced the commission to re-examine the deal with Lopa, who died of cancer last November. It found no evidence of improper behavior.

That Aquino has at least partially delivered on her "no favors" pledge is generally overlooked. She has cut into Marcos' "crony capitalism" by dismantling sugar and coconut monopolies and beginning -- however clumsily -- to privatize government-owned companies that produce everything from cars to cement. But she has been unable to dispel some well-entrenched assumptions. "For any average Filipino, if he gets a good job, his family would expect to benefit," explains Jose Luis Alcuaz, a longtime ally of Aquino's assassinated husband Benigno.

Yet tradition hardly absolves the President. By failing to attack corruption head on and thus clear up a growing list of allegations, Aquino risks damage to her most valuable asset: her moral authority.

With reporting by Jay Branegan/Hong Kong and Nelly Sindayen/Manila