Time Is Running Out

Corazon Aquino continues to draw large and enthusiastic crowds as she campaigns to unseat President Ferdinand E. Marcos, but the turnout at political rallies is not necessarily an indication of how votes will finally be cast, or counted. This is what most worries all who see the Feb. 7 election as perhaps the last chance in a long while for democracy to be restored to the Philippines. After 20 years of rule, Marcos possesses formidable powers of coercion, political patronage and manipulation to control the election’s outcome. He has been zealous in not letting those powers go unused.

Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, has issued a blunt warning. An already skeptical Congress, he says, will refuse to accept the legitimacy of the election unless Marcos moves quickly to ensure its fairness.

Lugar cites three particular needs: Marcos must get the military, most of whose top officers are beholden to him, out of politics and under the kind of discipline that would end its often ruthless behavior toward civilians in rural areas. He must permit independent poll watchers, which should include a U.S. congressional delegation, to monitor the voting and the ballot counting. Finally, he should assure equal media coverage of his opponents; so far the country’s only nationwide television network has imposed a virtual blackout on the Aquino campaign.

With the voting now only a month away, time is running out for these steps to be adopted with any effect on electoral fairness. The signs mount that the election will indeed prove a sham, whose manipulated outcome will allow Marcos to claim a popular mandate that all evidence suggests simply does not exist. Marcos insists that he is running against his will to save the country. He is in fact running to perpetuate a regime of corruption and maladministration, and his victory would be a defeat for 55 million Filipinos.