Manila Whitewash

After suitably prolonged deliberation, a three-man court in Manila has found plausible the contention of President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ government that opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. was murdered by a small-time crook in the pay of local Communists, and not by the 26 men who were charged with complicity in his assassination. The verdict, coming from a panel of Marcos appointees, was not surprising. Neither was it even faintly credible.

The preponderance of evidence presented before the independent investigatory body known as the Agrava Commission, much of which the court refused to allow to be heard, and at the trial itself pointed clearly to a conspiracy to kill Aquino by the government agents who arrested him when he returned from three years of exile in the United States. That the evidence was largely dismissed or ignored by the court only underscores how manipulated once-free institutions in the Philippines have become after 20 years of Marcos’ rule. As independent institutions become further compromised, hopes that Filipinos may someday see a restoration of democracy erode further.

The verdict in the Aquino case can only add to the radicalization of the political opposition in the Philippines, to the benefit of the growing Communist-led insurgency. Marcos’ reinstatement of his crony and kinsman, Gen. Fabian C. Ver, as armed forces chief of staff immediately after Ver was acquitted of charges of trying to cover up military involvement in the Aquino assassination is further good news for the insurgents. U.S. officials consider Ver largely responsible for the corruption and ineptitude that have weakened the armed forces. If Ver remains in his job for anything longer than a brief face-saving period, there will almost surely be new moves in Congress to cut military aid to the Philippines. That won’t help in the effort to contain the insurgency. But nothing that Marcos is doing has helped, either.