‘Just as Soon’ See Marcos Depart, Shultz Says

Secretary of State George P. Shultz on Monday blamed Ferdinand E. Marcos for most of the economic and political problems that plague the Philippines and suggested that the deposed president end his Hawaiian exile and seek asylum in some other country.

Shultz, scheduled to arrive in Manila today as part of a Southeast Asian tour, said Marcos’ blunders while in office and his interference in Philippine politics since his ouster have aggravated the difficulties faced by the government of President Corazon Aquino.

He was especially critical of Marcos, accusing him of having manipulated the Philippine economy to increase his popularity while in office.

Uneconomical Businesses

“The Marcos regime built up a number of economic enterprises that employed people but were not economic,” Shultz said. “So part of the structural adjustment that is going on is to try to have the enterprises that survive be economically viable enterprises.

“So if you happen to be working in one that isn’t, that can constitute a problem, and no doubt it worries some people, and it ought to worry them,” he said. “But you have to get rid of enterprises like that.”

Shultz said the dislocation of those workers has fueled recent pro-Marcos demonstrations against the Aquino government.

Asked if the United States wants Marcos to leave Hawaii and go to another country, Shultz said: “Mr. Marcos has on a number of occasions expressed his desire to leave the United States. We don’t have any desire to have in our country persons who do not want to be there. So under the circumstances, we’d just as soon he leave.”

Marcos Is ‘the Past’

Nevertheless, Shultz urged the world to focus on the way Aquino handles the situation instead of on the Marcos legacy.

“Marcos is not the story--he’s the past,” Shultz said.

Shultz conferred privately for 2 1/2 hours Monday with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew during an overnight stay in the island city-state. Senior State Department officials said later that the two men discussed Singapore’s struggling domestic economy and their shared opposition to protectionist measures under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

The United States is Singapore’s largest single trading partner. The officials said that if Singapore is unable to increase its exports to the United States, it will find it difficult to shake off a two-year-long recession that has tarnished the country’s 20-year economic boom.

Meeting the Conditions

The officials said that Singapore already meets the conditions demanded by Congress for free access to U.S. markets because Singapore’s own markets are open to U.S. goods. The officials said about 90% of all U.S. products enter Singapore duty-free.

Shultz and Lee have been friends for years, and the prime minister has been a guest of the secretary of state at the exclusive Bohemian Grove resort near San Francisco.

On the way from Singapore to Manila today, Shultz is scheduled to stop for several hours in Brunei, which will make him the first U.S. secretary of state to officially visit that oil-rich sultanate, located on the north coast of the island of Borneo.

Talking to reporters aboard his airliner on the flight from Hong Kong to Singapore, Shultz said U.S. and Soviet officials have discussed ways to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. But he said the talks have produced only modest results.

Aspects of Non-Proliferation

“We’ve had discussions with them about many aspects of nuclear non-proliferation, and obviously both sides agree that we certainly don’t want to have nuclear weapons fall into the hands of terrorists, and we’ve had a little discussion about it,” he said. “But it isn’t as though there is some big program.”

Shultz discussed the talks in an interview published Monday in the West German newspaper Die Welt. The newpaper’s account was featured prominently on British Broadcasting Corp. international news broadcasts Sunday and Monday. But Shultz expressed surprise that the matter was so widely reported.