Aquino Sees Closer Ties With U.S. : Dismisses Prospect of Warmer Relations With Soviet Union

President Corazon Aquino said today that she expects closer ties with the United States and brushed off the Soviet Union, which was quick to congratulate Ferdinand E. Marcos on his disputed election victory.

She also said that she wants the reputed founder of the Philippine Communist Party freed from military custody and that she has a plan for the strategic military bases the United States maintains in the Philippines, but will not disclose it until negotiations begin.

“I think we will develop stronger ties,” she said of the United States in an interview with the Associated Press. “I can see no reason why two democracy-loving countries cannot maintain or even enhance better relations.”

Asked about the possibility of a similar relationship with the Soviet Union, Aquino said: “I guess . . . (we) can’t be close to both. That would be wishful thinking that you could possibly be close to the two super-contenders.

Congratulated Marcos

“I haven’t even thought about them (the Soviets),” she said, “especially after they congratulated Mr. Marcos.”

The Soviet Union was the first of very few countries that sent congratulatory messages to Marcos after the National Assembly he controlled proclaimed him victor over Aquino in the Feb. 7 presidential election.

Marcos had accused Aquino of having communist leanings and predicted that, if she won the presidency, the country would slide quickly into the communist sphere.

She said she wants freedom for Jose Maria Sison, purported founder of the Philippine Communist Party, and three other political prisoners with suspected ties to the insurgency who are still held pending investigation by a special commission. Sison, 47, has been in military custody for about 10 years.

Release of 480 Others

Aquino ordered the unconditional release of the 480 other people deemed to have been political prisoners of the Marcos regime.

“If I can be magnanimous to people who have been with Marcos’ government, then definitely more so to people who have been the victims of injustice,” she said in the interview.

She would not reveal her position in negotiations about Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base, on which the current leases run until 1991, or how she would handle pressure from nationalists who want the U.S. military out of the country.

“I’d really like to be a good negotiator,” she said, “and I’ll just answer questions on the bases when the time comes. I already know what I am going to do, but I am the representative of the Filipino people, first and foremost.”