By Leaving Quietly, Marcos Is Assured of U.S. Asylum

By agreeing to abandon the Philippine presidency without a fight, Ferdinand E. Marcos assured himself of permission to live out his life in the United States. But congressional critics of the deposed president said Tuesday that they might attempt to strip him of some of his American investments.

Secretary of State George P. Shultz said Marcos is “welcome to come to the United States,” and other U.S. officials expressed confidence that newly installed Philippine President Corazon Aquino would not object.

A senior State Department official said Marcos will remain temporarily on Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific that was the first stop for the former president, his wife, Imelda, their children, and an entourage of about 60.

Although the official said he did not know where the former president would go ultimately, all the indications were that it would be somewhere in the United States.

The official said that Marcos originally asked to go to his home province of Ilocos del Norte in the northern Philippines but that the Aquino people refused. The official said the U.S. Embassy forwarded Marcos’ request to Aquino shortly before he left the presidential palace for an overnight stay at Clark Air Base.

Another Administration official said that Marcos’ wife also opposed the idea of moving to Ilocos del Norte. The official said Imelda Marcos preferred New York, which she visited when Marcos addressed the U.N. General Assembly in October.

A U.S. invitation to Marcos to come to the United States would be an exception to the rule that the United States usually refuses political asylum to deposed leaders accused of human rights violations.

But Democrats are considered unlikely to oppose an invitation because many of them--including such severe Marcos critics as Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) and Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.)--urged the Administration in recent weeks to offer asylum to Marcos if he agreed to step down and prevent a civil war.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.) said the offer to get Marcos out of the Philippines averted “a great deal of bloodshed and violence.”

Nevertheless, Solarz said there could be a fight over the substantial holdings of Marcos and his wife in U.S. real estate and other investments.

“I am exploring legislation right now which would enable the government of the Philippines, if it desires to do so, to attach those assets if they can establish that the properties owned by the Marcoses in the United States were acquired through the use of corruptly obtained resources,” Solarz said.

“We’re not talking about peanuts,” he added. “We’re talking about hundreds of millions, and maybe even in excess of $1 billion.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he does not believe that the Marcos wealth will become an issue unless there is proof that the former president had skimmed U.S. foreign aid.

But Rep. Charles F. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “If he’s going to live like a king, it’s going to be awfully embarrassing to the United States.”

Aquino--who said early in her campaign for the presidency that she intended to bring Marcos to trial for the August, 1983, murder of her husband, opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr.--could be an obstacle to Marcos’ residence in the United States. But more recently she said that she would be magnanimous in victory.

An Administration official said Tuesday that “I think she would understand” American reasons for granting Marcos asylum and would not demand his return to the Philippines. Although there is no extradition treaty between the two nations, Aquino could embarrass the U.S. government by insisting on Marcos’ return.

William H. Sullivan, a former U.S. ambassador to Manila, said he assumed that U.S. officials had secured a secret agreement from Aquino to go along with the asylum offer.

An aide to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a member of the U.S. delegation that observed the recent Marcos-Aquino election, said: “What I heard when I was in the Philippines was, ‘You (the Americans) have an obligation to take him off our hands.’ ”

Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III said it is unlikely that Marcos will be arrested in the United States. “As far as I know, nobody has made any criminal allegations, but no one is above the law,” Meese told the National Press Club. “I would anticipate that situation would not occur.”

Earlier this month, the United States refused to give asylum to deposed Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier because of his history of human rights offenses. But sources both in the Administration and on Capitol Hill said that Marcos is a different case, in part because he has always supported U.S. foreign policy.

The difference, said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), amounts to “a fundamental distinction between a mass murderer and a mass burglar.”

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Eleanor Clift, Sara Fritz, Doyle McManus, Ronald J. Ostrow and Karen Tumulty.