Aquino Has Abandoned Mandate, Enrile Charges

Philippine Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile charged Tuesday that President Corazon Aquino no longer has a mandate to run the nation, and he declared that hers is “a revolutionary government” that should stand for elections next year.

Speaking at a luncheon forum to wealthy Manila businessmen, Enrile said Aquino “forfeited, abandoned” and “threw away” her mandate from the Filipino people when she abolished the nation’s constitution, dissolved Parliament and adopted her own “Freedom Constitution” last March.

Enrile blasted Aquino’s decision as “dangerous” and said it was the primary cause of the lingering political instability in the country.

It was Enrile’s strongest criticism yet of Aquino’s right to the presidency, which the 53-year-old political novice assumed after a successful Roman Catholic Church-backed coup that Enrile led in February against President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The nation’s largest newspaper, the Philippine Inquirer, reported Enrile’s speech today under the bold headline, “Enrile Blasts Cory,” and several political analysts viewed the charges as an opening salvo in a campaign by Enrile and the Philippine political right to push for new presidential elections before Aquino’s term expires in 1992.

Enrile, 62, a veteran politician who is known to harbor political ambitions of his own, made the charges in answer to a question about whether he regrets not having taken power himself during the coup that drove Marcos from office after two decades of authoritarian rule.

“Why should I have any regrets in fulfilling my political ideal?” Enrile replied, adding that if he had implemented his initial contingency plan to establish a ruling military junta after Marcos fled Feb. 25, it would have been a “painful” precedent for a nation that has always had elected presidents.

Constitutional Issue

Enrile said he supported Aquino’s assumption of the presidency on Feb. 25 based on her claim to victory at the polls during the Feb. 7 presidential election, but he said that victory was based on the 1973 constitution, which Aquino later abolished.

During a Cabinet meeting a month after the coup, Enrile said Tuesday, “I argued we should not organize a revolutionary government because we have already organized a constitutional government,” adding that if Aquino had listened to him, “we would have stabilized the government immediately.”

The defense minister then said he supports efforts by Aquino’s ambitious vice president, Salvador Laurel, to call for presidential elections early next year. The government already has said there will be local and regional elections next May, and Aquino has vowed several times that she will not run for reelection in any future presidential contest.

Commission Votes

In a separate forum Tuesday, though, the constitutional commission appointed by Aquino to draft a new national charter, voted overwhelmingly to fix Aquino’s current term at six years, ending in June 30, 1992.

Several observers noted that Enrile’s charges, which he has discussed privately in the past several months, appeared to be an attempt by the Harvard-educated defense minister to lay a legal basis to take power, either militarily or by forcing new elections.

Reliable sources within Enrile’s Defense Ministry have said that a core group of senior officers who were instrumental in staging the February coup already have created a 600-man crack combat force that could be used in a future coup attempt.

A large and growing faction of the 200,000-man Philippine military is increasingly angered over Aquino’s talk-then-fight approach to solving the nation’s bloody, 17-year-old Communist insurgency, and in an almost daily speaking tour of the nation, Enrile has assumed the role of leader of the hard-liners.

Asked during the Tuesday forum, though, whether he still harbors presidential ambitions, Enrile said, “I have no more political plans. All I want is to help in stabilizing this country.”

And several times during the Tuesday forum before the Manila Rotary Club, Enrile insisted he is still loyal to Aquino, describing his military organization as “the tail of the dog. We will wag according to what the head wants us to do.”