Marcos has Lead; Count Nearing End : Assembly Backers Expect to Name Him Winner Soon

Amid opposition charges that official election returns from entire provinces and large districts of Manila are fraudulent, Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos took a strong lead Thursday in the final tallying by the Marcos-controlled National Assembly of last week’s still-unresolved presidential election.

With more than half the popular vote tabulated, Marcos led challenger Corazon Aquino by 759,000 votes, and the president’s parliamentary lieutenant said that supporters expect Marcos to be proclaimed the winner in “two to three days.” The assembly adjourned until today.

House Speaker Nicanor Yniguez, who also served as Marcos’ national campaign manager, made it clear on the assembly floor Thursday that the winner will be proclaimed despite dozens of opposition challenges to apparently adulterated official returns. These represent millions of votes for Marcos, reported from provinces and municipal areas that are Marcos strongholds.

Aquino declared Thursday that such a proclamation “would not convince the people” of any new Marcos mandate. The 53-year-old political novice has proclaimed herself the victor in the election, based on independent tallies that show her in the lead. She called on Marcos to “abdicate” and move out of his posh presidential palace--a sprawling complex that many Filipinos see as a symbol of his 20 years in power--until “this matter is settled . . . by a wider political exercise.”

Only such a resignation would break the national anxiety over who won the election held a week ago and “defuse some of the swelling political anger in our country,” she said, adding that she “will strain my every nerve to ensure that our political crisis is resolved without much violence.”

Declaration Toned Down

Aquino’s statement was a toned-down version of earlier declarations indicating that she may claim her victory in the streets during daily demonstrations. It was seen by many here as an answer to President Reagan, who has asked Aquino and Marcos to work together to peacefully resolve the current political crisis.

In her brief statement Thursday, Aquino pledged half a dozen times to promote peace, but she stressed that her proposed solution of a wider political exercise does not mean “another election, but a process which enables the political system to respond to the real will of the people.”

Aquino did not suggest the name of someone to run the government in the president’s absence. There is no vice president until one is named from the results of last week’s election. Nor did she specify what she meant by a “wider political exercise.”

A spokesman said that she was meeting with leaders of various parties, whom he would not identify. He also said she was prepared to meet President Reagan’s special emissary, Philip C. Habib, who arrives this weekend.

The presidential press office had no immediate comment on Aquino’s call for Marcos to step down.

Marcos Calls for Peace

A few hours after Aquino’s statement was released, though, Marcos appeared on national television and echoed Aquino’s call for peace. “Too much that is regrettable has already happened since the voting came to a close,” Marcos said. “Even greater tension has risen in the country.”

Meanwhile, the White House stuck by President Reagan’s statement in his Tuesday press conference that there may have been violence and fraud on both sides in the Philippine election.

“The President said what he said and that’s the U.S. view,” spokesman Larry Speakes told reporters in Santa Barbara, where Reagan is vacationing for three days at his ranch in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Reagan’s remarks have been widely interpreted both in the Philippines and by some top U.S. officials as an indication of Reagan’s leaning toward keeping the present Marcos government in power.

Speakes denied that Reagan was doing anything more than expressing neutrality in a foreign election. “The President’s statement is plain,” he said. “Any misinterpretation of it is not done by the President.”

Asked if the U.S. observer delegation headed by Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) had reported fraud by the Aquino side, Speakes said, “No, we have other sources other than the Lugar commission for our information . . . the President gets information from other people.”

Presidential envoy Habib left Washington on Thursday night for Manila. Speakes said Habib’s mission is to consult with all elements of Philippine society--government, church and opposition--and to report back to Reagan. He said Habib will not attempt to negotiate a settlement between the two sides over who won the election.

3 More Murders Reported

Philippine post-election violence continued Thursday. Aquino’s headquarters announced three additions to its list of 20 election-related murders since Feb. 6, election eve--almost all of the victims opposition supporters.

Arsenio Cainglet, Aquino’s campaign coordinator in her home province of Tarlac, was shot to death by unknown assailants outside his home. Cainglet’s son gave chase and has not been seen since. Hours later, a body that Aquino headquarters said was that of the son was found.

The body of another local leader, Aquino’s campaign manager in the province of Quirino, was found hanging upside down from a tree in a town where government security forces are also searching for a second local opposition leader investigators have charged with burning down the local town hall on Monday.

Aquino’s aides in Manila view the wave of killings of Aquino’s supporters as a prelude to widespread punishment in another Marcos presidential term.

But Marcos, too, condemned the killings Thursday. “Already, the tense situation has engendered sporadic instances of violence in our midst, including the brutal slaying of . . . (opposition leader and former governor of Antique province) Evelio Javier,” Marcos said. Adding to his prepared statement, Marcos also mentioned the killing of a mayor in the Bicol region of Luzon, a member of his ruling party who was killed before election day.

“It is important that one side unilaterally take the first steps to make conciliation possible, so that other hearts embittered by anger and hate may be softened,” he said. “I appeal to all of my (ruling party) colleagues, supporters and sympathizers to join me in taking these first steps. . . . I ask you not to respond in any matter to any provocations, or to retaliate for any hurts you may have received.”

In the late afternoon at a Manila church, Aquino said at a Mass for Javier, assassinated Tuesday in Antique, that “this brings back painful memories.”

Aquino’s husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., Marcos’ foremost political rival, was assassinated Aug. 21, 1983, at Manila International Airport as he returned here from three years of exile in the United States.

“I know exactly what the family of Evelio is feeling now,” Aquino said. “And I hope that when the widow comes (to Manila), many of us will meet her and give her the inspiration that I received when I came back from Boston to see Ninoy (her slain husband) for the first time after the assassination.”

Javier, who forecast his own death during the heated election campaign, was killed by six hooded men who fired on him as he left the provincial capital, wounding him in the shoulder, according to witnesses.

He ran to a nearby store and hid in a bathroom, but his assailants followed him and fired a fusillade through the door. The body bore 24 bullet wounds. A captain in the Philippine constabulary was arrested as the leader of the gunmen.

Javier’s body was brought to Manila on Thursday for the Mass and for today’s funeral. Addressing several thousand people filling Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in the Baclaran district of Manila, Aquino said:

“Like Ninoy, Evelio lived a meaningful life and died a meaningful death. . . . I am very grateful for the sacrifice. . . . This has shown us the way and perhaps this is one way of telling us that there will be more sacrifices for all of us.”

Another national political leader, Marcos loyalist Arturo Pacificador, who is majority whip in the National Assembly and who was Javier’s bitter enemy, also likened the killing to Benigno Aquino’s in an interview Thursday.

But Pacificador asserted that Javier, 43, who did graduate studies at Harvard University, had actually engineered his own assassination just to make Marcos look bad.

After watching videotapes of Javier’s predictions that he would be killed and that Pacificador’s men would be the ones to kill him, Pacificador said, “I am more convinced than ever he engineered this in the same manner that the killing of Aquino was engineered by the opposition.”

Pacificador, who says he now wears a bullet-proof vest at all times and never stands near windows because he fears a revenge plot, also figured in Thursday’s prolonged debate over the final, official presidential canvassing.

The majority whip’s home province of Antique was among 13 major regional districts from which final returns had not yet reached the assembly for counting, and opposition leaders charged that Marcos’ aides were keeping those districts in reserve in the event that the 126 already in hand do not give Marcos a large enough victory when counting is completed today or Saturday. Together, the 13 districts from which tallies have not been received represent about 2 million votes.

Times staff writer Eleanor Clift, in Santa Barbara, contributed to this story.