Vice President Widens Split in Aquino Cabinet

Vice President Salvador Laurel deepened the split in the Philippines’ ruling coalition Wednesday, charging President Corazon Aquino’s government with “emotional blackmail” in attempting to silence her critics. Laurel also challenged Aquino to test her mandate in a nationwide referendum next January.

In a speech accusing Aquino’s advisers of “unthinkable coercion” like that of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Laurel declared, “We did not topple down tyranny only to be subjected to another attempt to impose unanimity.”

For the first time since the Aquino coalition was formed in February, the vice president failed to attend Wednesday’s weekly Cabinet meeting. Other ministers viewed this as an act of open defiance.

Quick Recovery

A few hours later, Laurel told reporters he missed the meeting because he was ill. “I had a terrible sneezing, allergic cold,” he said. “I didn’t want to contaminate them.”

But a few hours later Laurel was well enough to have a press conference and deliver the speech, to a dinner meeting of shipping executives. He said his fever “settled down.”

In explaining his criticisms of a government he helped bring to power, Laurel said he was reacting to recent statements by Aquino’s press secretary ordering the vice president and all other Cabinet ministers to endorse Aquino’s proposed new constitution or resign.

The proposed constitution, which will be submitted to the voters in January, was drafted by a commission of 48 members appointed by Aquino in March.

Many Filipinos have come to view the vote on the constitution as a test of Aquino’s popularity. On Monday the president’s press secretary, Teodoro Benigno, encouraged that view, saying, “A vote for the constitution is a vote for President Aquino, and a vote against it is a repudiation of her government.”

Benigno added that if Laurel cannot support the constitution, he should resign “as a matter of principle.”

‘Attempt to Silence Dissent’

At his press conference and in his speech Wednesday, Laurel called this “a futile attempt to silence dissent.”

Citing a similar referendum ordered by Marcos in 1973, to ratify a constitution drafted by people he had appointed, Laurel said that “only Marcos in all those years of his despotic rule made the plebiscite the litmus test of the loyalty of his puppets.”

Aquino abolished Marcos’ constitution in March. She imposed a provisional constitution and pledged to hold a referendum on the new constitution, which would extend her term and Laurel’s until June of 1992.

Aquino has praised the new constitution, and she is known to regard it as a crucial step toward bringing stability to the country. She has undertaken a national campaign to generate support for it, and she has said that the clause fixing her term for the next six years will end all speculation on her presidential mandate.

Another Critic

Laurel was not alone Wednesday in his criticism of the president and her press secretary. Amando Dornila, a prominent Manila newspaper columnist who was imprisoned by Marcos and supported Aquino in her first few months in office, openly criticized the president for failing to react personally to criticism of her constitution.

Dornila called the Aquino administration “the lowest-profile in the nation’s post-independence history--as if it were always crouching to hide and duck from attacks.” He said her failure to react made her look “weak” and “silly,” and he criticized her for taking refuge in a Catholic convent last week when the charges against her regime reached a peak.

“What we are seeing very often is a president who seeks asylum behind the cloisters of the religious sisters when she faces crisis,” Dornila said.

Laurel confined his criticism to the proposed constitution. He said the clause fixing his and the president’s terms is controversial and potentially destructive, and he proposed that the government put two questions to the voters: whether they approve of the proposed presidential and vice presidential terms and, if not, whether they want a new election for the two posts next May.

Dissolved Legislature

Laurel and Aquino are the only popularly elected central government officials in the Philippines today. Aquino, who dissolved the legislature when she abolished the constitution, bases her mandate on last February’s presidential election, in which Laurel was her running mate.

Laurel, who is known to have presidential ambitions, told reporters Wednesday that he is willing to stand for election again next year, but he said it is “a party decision” whether he would run for president or vice president.

Asked whether his statements represented a final break with Aquino, Laurel said, “That’s premature.”

Laurel has met several times recently with Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, who has been Aquino’s harshest critic. Enrile, a longtime figure in Philippine politics who is also regarded as a potential candidate for president, has said Aquino threw out her mandate when she dissolved the 1973 constitution.

Linked to Constitution

If the constitution is rejected next January, Enrile has said, Aquino will have to resign because “her moral authority to govern will be eroded.”

Enrile and Laurel have both criticized the draft constitution as “verbose” and “confusing.” Enrile has said it “will pull the country apart” if it is ratified.

In his attack Wednesday, Laurel said the constitutional question is “a moral one.” He said that opening up for the people the question of whether they still want him and Aquino in office “would show to our people that we have, indeed, done what our predecessors had completely refused to do--put our nation and our country above our own political interests.”