Marcos Foes Set to Name Candidate : Aquino and Laurel to Announce Choice for Top Spot Sunday

Opposition leader Salvador Laurel said today that he and Corazon Aquino will announce Sunday which of them will head the opposition ticket in the election set for Feb. 7 by President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Aquino, wife of slain opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., announced her presidential candidacy Tuesday, a day after the acquittal of the men accused in her husband’s death.

Marcos indicated today that he might agree to participate in a nationally televised debate requested by Aquino. “My conversations with ladies have always been pleasant and I presume I will survive this encounter,” he said in a news release.

Second Spot Offered

On Tuesday, Aquino offered the vice presidential spot to Laurel, a former senator and head of the nation’s largest coalition of opposition groups.

But Laurel, himself a presidential aspirant, said today that he and Aquino will announce at a joint news conference Sunday who will head the opposition ticket.

“Time is running out,” Laurel said. “We cannot go on talking indefinitely.”

Aquino and Laurel have been negotiating for several weeks on their challenge to Marcos, president of the Philippines for 20 years.

“We’re going to announce who will be the presidential and who will be the vice presidential candidate,” Laurel said.

Two Candidates Possible

But when pressed by reporters, Laurel declined to say whether he had agreed to be on the same ticket as Aquino. He said it is possible that two candidates would challenge Marcos in the special Feb. 7 presidential election but added, “I hope it doesn’t happen.”

Aquino, contacted by telephone, declined to confirm that she would make a joint announcement with Laurel, saying, “Let’s wait until Sunday.”

But she said she definitely wants to run only for president and is not interested in the vice presidency because she is “perceived as the unifier” of the Philippines.

She said her advisers told her that she would need the equivalent of $14 million to $28 million to run a national campaign and said she is optimistic that she can raise the lesser amount from opposition businessmen and supporters.

Asked if she expected support from the Roman Catholic Church, to which 85% of the islands’ 53 million inhabitants belong, Aquino said, “I should certainly hope so but, of course, they can’t do it publicly.”

Court to Rule on Election

The Supreme Court, meanwhile, agreed today to decide whether Marcos’ call for an early presidential election is unconstitutional because of his refusal to resign before the vote.

The court set a hearing for Dec. 17 and ordered government lawyers to reply within seven days.

The court did not block the Commission on Elections and other government agencies from proceeding with preparations for the vote.

First Lady Imelda Marcos addressed a group of businessmen today and urged them to support her husband in the election.

“I am not campaigning for Marcos. . . . We are here campaigning for the survival of the country,” she said, occasionally wiping tears from her eyes during her speech.