Aquino Getting Some Media Exposure After U.S. Pressures Marcos

MANILA — Television viewers here have been able to witness a rare event on the evening news the past few nights: They have actually seen opposition presidential candidate Corazon Aquino appear on the screen.

More than that, they have heard bits of her anti-government speeches. The coverage has lasted several minutes each evening. And Friday morning, readers of the national daily, the Bulletin Today--which, like all five television stations in the country, is a staunch supporter of President Ferdinand E. Marcos--were treated to a front-page story on Aquino’s plea at a campaign rally that the nation “pray for God’s righteousness and justice, victory at the polls and liberation of the people.”

All these are signs that, with just six days left until the special presidential election scheduled for Feb. 7, Marcos and his government are responding to pressure from the opposition and officials in Washington to make the election a fairer contest.

The voluntary decision by the government-owned television station to begin covering Aquino’s rallies--after weeks of all but ignoring her while devoting many hours a day to Marcos’ speeches--came, for example, only after a widely publicized speech Monday by U.S. Ambassador Stephen W. Bosworth.

Access and Fairness

Bosworth told a Manila audience that resolving the issue of equal access to the media “would clearly contribute to an overall determination that the electoral process has been a fair one.”

However, even now, Aquino supporters noted, the minutes of air time allotted their candidate are minuscule compared to the hours given Marcos, whose campaign speeches often are broadcast in full by the government station every night.

One of Aquino’s attorneys criticized the motives of the pro-Marcos media in deciding to cover Aquino. Francis Garchitorena, who has been arguing the equal-access issue before the National Election Commission for two weeks, told an American on Friday: “They are not sensitive to our screamings, but they are sensitive to your screamings. . . . Our little joke is that we are only going to get true equal time beginning Feb. 9.”

Still, many opposition leaders and foreign analysts here said the equal-time issue is just one major component of a fair and honest election, which is considered an essential step toward restoring credibility and stability in the Philippine government and economy. And they added that, as an incumbent, Marcos continues to have a distinct advantage over Aquino.

Powers of Office Used

Throughout his campaign, Marcos has used the vast powers of his presidency as an election tool. His local party workers, most of them mayors, governors and assemblymen, have ensured large crowds at some of Marcos’ rallies, in part, by bringing in farmers from distant barrios in fleets of public highways department trucks, all of them labeled, “For official use only.”

As an added inducement, Marcos’ political party, the New Society Movement (KBL), uses its campaign war chest--estimated by some Aquino aides at 4 billion pesos, or $200 million--to ensure that everyone who attends the president’s rallies is given a free meal as well.

During one recent rally in the remote town of San Jose, on the island of Mindoro, the KBL provided lunch for 5,000. There was no meat left at any restaurant in town for the next 24 hours.

The constant and sophisticated government media coverage of the president’s appearances, even in remote regions, have been made possible by his liberal use of C-130 Philippine air force transport planes, which ferry in television trucks, stage sets and other heavy equipment.

Marcos also has made sweeping use of his control over the Philippine treasury. At each of his more than 30 campaign rallies throughout the country, he has decreed financial benefits tailored to his audience--from the forgiveness of outstanding mortgage loans worth a few hundred dollars to major, industrial bailout schemes worth millions.

Help for Sugar

In the troubled island of Negros, for example, where more than 300,000 sugar cane workers have been unemployed during the current depression of world sugar prices, Marcos said in a speech there this week that he is giving the sugar industry more than $60 million from a discretionary fund that he controls. He did not point out, though, that most of the money actually will not be cash, but in already planned government price guarantees.

In addition, Marcos has announced unilateral raises totaling $1 million nationwide for government teachers, who are deputized to run the polling places on election day. And during the past several weeks, it has been next to impossible to find elected ruling party mayors, governors or assemblymen during working hours.

Most have been spending their time in rural areas campaigning for the president--a built-in election force often referred to as a political machine rivaled only by that of former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

“Of course, the incumbency gives the president an initial material advantage, but these are all things that we expect during elections in the Philippines,” said opposition lawyer and Aquino aide Joker Arroyo.

“As the campaign goes on, people just react by saying, ‘So what else is new?’ ”

On the issue of improved access to the media, a case that Arroyo also argued before the election commission, he added that it is not as important as it was in the beginning of the campaign.

Watchdog Role Crucial

Far more crucial in the final analysis, say Arroyo and other Aquino aides, will be the integrity of the actual election process, in which Marcos also has a built-in advantage of incumbency. The key, they said, will be whether an independent watchdog group, the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections, is authorized by the election commission to conduct a nationwide “quick-count” of the returns on election day.

The nine-member election commission, which was personally appointed by Marcos--two of the members just this week--has indicated that it will not permit an independent Citizens Movement count, instead ordering that the group combine its efforts with that of the election commission.

The decision provoked a large protest demonstration Friday outside the commission building by lawyers and Aquino supporters who said that only the watchdog group can prevent widespread election rigging, which is a tradition in Philippine elections.

“The quick-count issue has become a real monster for the government,” said Arroyo, who, like most analysts, credited the Citizens Movement’s quick-count with the opposition’s surprisingly strong showing in national assembly elections two years ago.

To Forestall Tampering

“The general idea of a quick- count is to establish an honest trend in the voting before the returns can be tampered with,” said Arroyo, who has been arguing that issue, too, before the election commission.

By posting its own, independent poll watchers and vote counters at all of the nation’s 85,600 precincts, and reporting early returns, he added, the Citizens Movement can publicly report results that “the government will have a hard time denying when the official count comes out two days later.”

Already, Arroyo and Aquino aides elsewhere in the country have reported signs that Marcos’ machine is preparing what several have called “massive vote fraud.”

Arroyo said he has seen voter lists from towns that do not even exist. On Thursday, Aquino’s vice presidential running mate, Salvador Laurel, said his party workers on the southern island of Mindanao have found stacks of fake ballots already filled out for the president and signed.

And even the president’s own party workers have hinted that the electoral process in their region is likely to be “different” from the western standard of free and honest polls. “We have our own style of doing an election here,” said Daisy Raquiza, the mayor of the town of Pidig, which lies in the heart of Marcos’s home province of Ilocos del Norte.

Asked what that style is, Raquiza, who is also the daughter of a close Marcos aide, said, “That’s my secret.”

Later, though, in explaining her role as a ruling party mayor during the presidential election, Raquiza added, “You impose. Should I say impose or threaten?”

“It is like this: I simply tell the people of my town, ‘If you are not going to help, then next time you need help, well, maybe I won’t show my face to the president for you.’ ”