San Francisco Embraces Filipino Leader

Philippine President Corazon Aquino was cheered on both sides of San Francisco Bay on Tuesday as she made the final stop in her United States tour here in one of the nation’s largest Filipino-American communities.

She was greeted by hotel maids, elementary school students, politicians and university educators. Only a smattering of protesters showed up, some claiming that she is too soft on Communists while others claimed that she has gone too far to the political right.

At John Swett Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco, Elaine Morch’s 5th-grade class gave Aquino a binder filled with their essays about freedom. At the University of California at Berkeley, Chancellor Ira M. Heyman awarded Aquino the Berkeley Medal, the university’s highest honorary award.

“In a world where so much seems to go wrong, we are here to celebrate something that went very, very right,” Heyman said at UC Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, where Aquino addressed an audience of 10,000.

Later, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein vowed to renew “sister city” relations with Manila, which she severed after Aquino’s husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., was assassinated in August, 1983. Twenty-five Philippine military men, including the armed forces chief of staff under ousted President Ferdinand E. Marcos, and a civilian were acquitted last year in the assassination, but the Supreme Court has recently ordered them retried.

“You do us such honor by visiting our city,” Feinstein told Aquino at a lunch for 1,600 people at the San Francisco Hilton Hotel, an event sponsored by the World Affairs Council, the Commonwealth Club and the Asia Foundation.

‘Longer, Deeper Ties’

“We are closer to you geographically (than East Coast cities that Aquino visited). We have longer and deeper ties in commerce and family,” Robert Gordon, vice president of the World Affairs Council, said, explaining the keen interest in her visit here.

Aquino sandwiched the visit to the elementary school between speeches and meetings with business leaders here.

As her motorcade arrived at the school near downtown San Francisco, several hundred children released yellow balloons and chanted, “Cory, Cory, Cory!” Inside, a message on the blackboard of Elaine Morch’s classroom said: “Mabuhay! Welcome to President Aquino from all the students at John Swett School.” (Mabuhay is a traditional Filipino greeting.)

“They won’t be over this for a year,” Morch said of her 35 pupils.

Aquino gave the class essays and artwork from students at the Pedro Gomez School in Manila and answered a few questions. One of the children asked what freedom meant to her.

“It means a lot to me,” she said. “I lost my husband because he wanted to go home to restore freedom to the Filipino people. That is why I am in this country--to ask for help.”

Another child asked how Aquino balanced her various roles as mother, grandmother and president, prompting Aquino to say, “I like being Grandma best of all.”

Only a handful of protesters appeared in Berkeley and at the San Francisco hotel. At the university, an aging man with long hair and beard and patched blue jeans passed out handbills proclaiming that “revolutionary Trotskyism” was the only answer to problems in the Philippines.

At the Hilton, about 25 pro-Marcos demonstrators held signs, chanted and walked in a circle.

“This is a spontaneous action that we’re having today,” said Franky T. Respicio, one of a dozen or so people who arrived from Stockton to protest Aquino’s government. Like other pro-Marcos demonstrators, he explained the sparse showing by saying, “This is a working day.”

On the other side of the hotel, a group of hotel employees, mostly housekeepers, cheered Aquino.