Cory Aquino a Candidate--For Now : Marcos Could Bar Popular Foe From Philippine Election

Corazon Aquino, apparently the presidential candidate of a united opposition, organized campaigners into “Cory’s Crusaders” on Friday, while hundreds of people protested the acquittal of soldiers charged with assassinating her husband.

Informed political sources say that former Sen. Salvador Laurel has agreed to be the running mate of Aquino, the widow of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, on a united ticket.

However, they said that President Ferdinand Marcos has “at least two cards up his sleeve” that could prevent Corazon Aquino from even being a presidential candidate. Marcos, they said, would be able to “stop her campaign in its tracks on technical constitutional terms.”

The sources, who declined to be identified, pointed to a section of the constitution adopted in 1973, while Marcos ruled under martial law, which states that a candidate for president must have been a resident of the Philippines “for at least 10 years immediately prior to the election.”

Lived in United States

The Aquinos went to the United States in 1980 when the former senator was released from military detention to undergo heart surgery. He did not return until August, 1983, when he was shot dead at Manila’s airport. His wife returned a few days later.

On Monday, a court acquitted armed forces chief Gen. Fabian C. Ver and 25 other defendants, all but one of them soldiers, in the assassination.

The political sources also said that the entire election could be voided by the Supreme Court, which has scheduled hearings for Monday on petitions challenging the constitutionality of the special election bill.

Marcos, 68, has been in power for 20 years, more than eight of them under martial law. He called snap elections for Feb. 7, though his present six-year term does not expire until June, 1987.

The sources said Sen. Laurel had apparently agreed to step down a peg in favor of Aquino on the election ticket in order to prevent a more serious split in opposition ranks.

Most Troubling Slate

Two or three others are also jockeying for nomination on an anti-Marcos ticket, but an Aquino-Laurel slate is seen as the most troubling for Marcos.

Aquino’s 52-year-old widow has considerable popular support, much of it fueled by the emotion attached to her husband’s murder, which could be refreshed by the court verdict and Marcos’ immediate reinstatement of Ver as his military chief. Marcos told the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific that he will make a final decision on Ver’s future “after about a week,” a palace news release said.

About 1,000 leftist students and workers set off firecrackers and marched through the capital’s streets Friday to protest the acquittal and reinstatement of Ver.

The demonstrators, waving red flags, held two marches a few miles apart. They called on residents to join a “noise barrage” by banging on pots and pans in the evening.

‘Demanding’ Justice

“We are not begging for justice, we are demanding it from this stingy dictatorship,” said Carmelo Arreza, one group’s leader in a speech at a downtown university.

The protesters, some of whom covered their faces with handkerchiefs to conceal their identities, carried placards that read “Punish Ver and All the Criminals,” and “Marcos Resign.”

The students also called for a boycott of the election, saying that voting would deflect attention from more pressing problems such as military abuses of human rights.

If she is allowed to run in the election, Corazon Aquino’s apparent personal integrity is seen as a tremendous plus against Marcos, whose patronage politics that have dominated the Philippine scene for two decades.