Rivals Sworn In; U.S. Urges Marcos to Quit : Presidential Contenders Inaugurated

Opposition leader Corazon Aquino was sworn in today as president of a rebel-proclaimed government of the Philippines just hours before her beleaguered rival, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, also had himself inaugurated at a ceremony in Malacanang Palace.

However, a live television broadcast of Marcos’ ceremony, from which foreign correspondents had been excluded, was blacked out moments before the swearing-in. The presidential news office later blamed technical difficulties and said that the swearing-in by Chief Justice Ramon Aquino of the Philippine Supreme Court had proceeded as planned.

In contrast, Corazon Aquino’s swearing-in, at the banquet hall of a social and recreation club in the wealthy Manila suburb of Greenhills, was watched by a crowd of about 600 supporters, including foreign reporters. An overflow crowd of about 2,000 waited outside, and film of the occasion was later broadcast on a government-owned station that had been captured by rebel troops Monday.

Meanwhile, there were reports of escalating violence, including gun battles between rebel forces and pro-Marcos troops in Makati, the financial district.

Witnesses said crowds around the captured government television station prevented an armored column loyal to Marcos from reaching the station, Channel 4, on Monday, but there were reports today of fighting around another station owned by Marcos supporters, Channel 9.

On Monday, a shaken Marcos vowed that he would not resign or flee the country, even though, he said, he and his family were “cowering in terror” inside his palace. Outside, key government defectors joined reformist rebel forces supporting Aquino, and tens of thousands of civilian demonstrators who came out to shield those forces against possible counterattack remained at the captured television station and a military base.

Curfew Defied

In doing so, they defied a dusk-to-dawn nationwide curfew that Marcos proclaimed earlier.

In an interview with a privately owned television station, Marcos also said that he will, along with his loyal forces, “defend the republic until the last breath of life and until the last drop of blood in our bodies.”

But it was clear by Monday that the momentum of events had shifted to the rebel troops led by former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the former deputy chief of staff. Their break with Marcos on Saturday, apparently the uncoordinated act of two individuals, has snowballed into a full-blown military coup d’etat.

Instead of awaiting an attack by loyalist forces to retake their headquarters at the suburban Manila military base, Camp Crame, the rebels went on the offensive, capturing Channel 4 and mounting an air attack on an air force base near Manila airport.

By day’s end, Marcos appeared to be the one besieged.

The capture of Channel 4 seemed especially crucial in the tug of war for control and the appearance of control. Not only did the capture itself leave Marcos cut off in mid-sentence during a broadcast Monday, but it also led to the blackout of his inaugural today.

His press spokesman explained that the blackout was caused by the failure of hastily rigged communications with Channel 9.

Fashionably Attired

Viewers were able to see a wide hallway crowded with Marcos supporters, his wife Imelda wearing a new dress that the pro-Marcos press had publicized as one of three bought in Rome, especially for the occasion. But the screen turned black as the narrator was announcing that “the moment we’ve been waiting for has arrived. . . .”

Wire service reports said that neither Vice President-elect Arturo Tolentino nor Prime Minister Cesar E.A. Virata were present.

The television station broadcast a John Wayne movie after the blackout.

At the club in Greenhills, Aquino was proclaimed president in a resolution that declared null and void the proclamation of the results of the Feb. 7 elections by the Marcos-controlled National Assembly.

“On the basis of a people’s mandate, clearly manifested on Feb. 7, I and Salvador H. Laurel are taking power in the name and by the will of the Filipino people as president and vice president respectively,” Aquino told the cheering crowd.

“It is fitting and proper that the rights and liberties of our people, taken away at midnight, are restored here in the light of day,” she said.

Claudio Teehankee, an associate justice of the Supreme Court and its only pro-Aquino member, administered the oath.

Names High Officials

As her first executive act, Aquino announced the appointment of her running mate, Laurel, as prime minister of her provisional government. She also named Enrile as defense minister and Ramos as chief of staff of the armed forces.

She called on the public “not to relax.”

“This is just the beginning, “ Aquino said.

She also appealed to the country’s more than 1 million civil servants to stay at their posts and to safeguard their records.

The ceremony, which was conducted under heavy security, started more than two hours behind schedule. Aquino herself arrived late, her departure from home apparently delayed by two pro-Marcos snipers on a television tower along the route. At least three people were reportedly wounded by the sniper fire.

Enrile and Ramos left Camp Crame by helicopter to attend the ceremonies, the first time in 48 hours that they had left the base. They urged opposition supporters not to follow, apparently fearing a dilution of the civilian crowds that are trying to inhibit any counterattack by Marcos forces.

Marcos Fights Rumors

On Monday, Marcos had spent much of the day trying to dispel reports that he had fled the country. He made repeated appearances on TV stations owned by friends and secured by commando troops, holding up copies of the daily paper for the cameras to prove that he was actually where he said he was. The cameras panned around the room to show his wife, son, daughter and frolicking grandchildren.

The palace compound was filled with tanks and about five battalions of loyal troops. When firecrackers went off in a crowd of pro-opposition civilians milling around outside, the jittery soldiers fired a volley that wounded at least four people. Others were hurt in the panic that followed.

In such an atmosphere, business did not continue as normal. The central bank was closed Monday and again today. Most stores, offices and movie theaters were closed Monday. Cardinal Jaime Sin, primate of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines, postponed a long-scheduled visit to the Vatican.

Rockets From Helicopters

A series of events Monday had left Marcos at his most precarious point in 20 years of authoritarian rule. The developments came rapid-fire:

--Rebel helicopter gunships fired six rockets into the palace compound, wounding two guards but missing the palace itself.

--Another sortie by three of the gunships, whose crews defected at dawn, giving Enrile and Ramos air-strike capability. The pilots strafed presidential planes at Villamor air base, destroying two helicopters and a C-130 transport and damaging three other helicopters.

--A commando force, led by a colonel who defected to Aquino two weeks before the Feb. 7 election, seized and held the government radio and television center. Four loyalists were wounded in the brief fighting, which took place as rebel F-5 fighters flew overhead. The rebels have since turned the station into a vital, direct propaganda link to the nation--what one defector, Gen. Eduardo Ermita, called “people’s power television.”

--A growing list of longtime loyalists whose support for the president had once seemed unshakable announced their support for Aquino. Among them were Roman Cruz, president of the national flag carrier, Philippine Airlines; Education Minister Jaime Laya, and key members of Marcos’ ruling party in the National Assembly.

Cruz, an ardent campaigner for Marcos in the election, advised Aquino of his resignation in a letter addressing her as “Madame President.”

--Dozens of military officers, from generals to second lieutenants, declared their support for the rebel force, which has named itself the New Armed Forces of the Philippines. Ramos asserted Monday that 85% of the 200,000-man Philippine military had sided with the rebels.

Table of Organization

Ramos listed the units that had joined his forces--among them the 15th Strike Wing of six jet fighters and seven helicopters, including those used in the Malacanang and Villamor attacks; the 800 Filipino officers and enlisted men from the Clark Air Base Command and 5th Fighter Wing; the Naval Defense Force, which he said includes the country’s warships, and the intelligence elements of armed forces headquarters.

The defecting officers cited both principle and pragmatism for abandoning their commander in chief of the last two decades.

Air force Col. Manuel Oxales, for instance, had been holed up for two days with other senior officers at his headquarters in Manila’s Camp Aguinaldo, trying to decide which side to choose after Enrile and Ramos seized control of the camp with 300 loyal officers Saturday afternoon.

“I finally made my decision this morning,” Oxales said. “When I saw President Marcos during his press conference with just three command generals, I knew he was down to nothing in support.”

But he added that, as a career soldier, he had watched incompetence take hold in the military since Gen. Fabian C. Ver assumed command as chief of staff in 1981. “We need reform,” he said, “and our only hope is that this whole thing works out.”

Hard-Core Support

According to rebel leaders and Western intelligence sources Monday night, Marcos’ bedrock of military support is confined to the five battalions inside his palace and the army ranger and marine battalions at Manila’s Ft. Bonifacio.

According to two opposition leaders and a Western intelligence source who were monitoring radio communications between the palace and field commanders Monday, Marcos, under pressure from an increasingly aggressive Gen. Ver, ordered his loyal troops occupying Camp Aguinaldo to shell Camp Crame with howitzers and mortars.

The directive was not obeyed by the marine field commander. Twenty minutes later, Ver personally repeated the order. Another 20 minutes passed and Ver was heard shouting, “Why has there been no firing?”

At noon, the field commander finally agreed to open fire, but moments later, a mysterious order was relayed countermanding the attack. Opposition leader Ernesto Maceda said the second instruction had actually been given by rebel forces who tapped into the loyalists’ communications system.

Soon after, Marcos ordered all his troops back to their bases, and a waiting game began.

‘Counting Heads’

“Marcos is counting heads,” said Col. Mariano Santiago, the onetime member of Marcos’ presidential security command, who led Monday’s rebel attack on the government TV station.

“If he finds he has enough loyalist forces to mount a successful attack on us, he’ll hit us. . . . If not, he’ll have a decision to make. Either take a flight out of here, or die with his boots on.”

As for Marcos, he seemed ready for the latter Monday night. In his broadcast message to the nation, the president declared: “I am fit. I am strong. I am ready to go to combat. But I don’t think they’ll let me. I don’t have my sniper rifle, which I might need to protect my family.”

Throughout the day, Marcos tried to picture himself variously as temperate and harsh. He scoffed at rebel claims of victory. “They say that they control the military. The military is ready to assault them in Camp Crame,” he said in a television broadcast.

Such claims were met with scorn by Enrile, who served Marcos for two decades and acted as his martial law administrator between 1972 and 1981. Enrile told reporters at Camp Crame: “Marcos is holed up at Malacanang. . . . I think this will not last much longer. There will be spasms, but I think we control the situation.”

Fighting for His Life

Indeed, Marcos told interviewers Monday night that he feels he is fighting not only for the preservation of the nation “but for my life and the lives of those around me.”

He added: “My family here is cowering in terror inside Malacanang Palace because of the threats of bombing by helicopter. . . . I would like to quietly and casually inform Mr. Enrile and Mr. Ramos that you better stop this illegal, illicit activity.”

In an attempt to separate Aquino from the military leaders and to depict them as ambitious power usurpers, Marcos repeated throughout the day that Enrile and Ramos form “an illegal, immoral third force” trying to snatch power from Aquino.

Responding at a news conference, Enrile said: “We are here not to grab power. We are here to perform a job and that is to see to that the will of the Filipino people . . . is respected by everybody.”

Aquino’s top aides said they were not concerned about a possible threat to her claimed presidential mandate from the two rebel military leaders. Billy Esposo, Aquino’s director of public information, said Monday: “I am not the least bit worried” that Enrile and Ramos might try to set up a permanent military junta. “They support her as president.”

Esposo also thanked Enrile and Ramos for their open defiance of Marcos at a time when Aquino was struggling to keep up the momentum of her nonviolent protest campaign and oust him from office.

“We were ready for a three-week to a three-month campaign of civil disobedience,” he said, “but because of this, it could be just three days. When tyrants go, they go very fast.”