Will Fight Any Coup, Aquino Warns Plotters : She Notes Rumors, Cautions Both Military and Rebels Against Move During Her Visit to Japan

President Corazon Aquino, acknowledging for the first time that members of her powerful armed forces have been plotting against her, warned Sunday that her government will fight against any attempted military coup or any attempt by Communist rebels to seize power during her four-day visit to Japan this week.

In a strongly worded speech delivered just 12 hours before her departure this morning for Tokyo, Aquino blamed “a few self-appointed messiahs” within the military for leaving her troubled nation “awash with rumors of an impending coup, or of an emergency contrived to justify uncalled-for action by some military units.”

Referring to the reported coup plot by its code name, “God Save the Queen,” Aquino declared, “This queen does not want to be saved.”

No one, she said, will be allowed “to interfere or to dictate to my government.”

‘Credibility . . . Diminished’

Aquino was even harsher in her criticism of the coup plotters during a nationally televised departure statement today. “The credibility of the Philippines as a country with a future . . . has been rather diminished,” she said moments before flying to Japan. She added that the rumors alone have scared off potential foreign investors, whose capital is desperately needed to solve the country’s economic crisis.

“Well, there is no use crying about it,” the president added from a makeshift stage on the airport tarmac. “The harm is done. It remains for us to cure it.

“Whether these rumors are true or not makes no difference. . . . There is nothing to worry about. We are as safe from any threats to our freedom as we are in our desire to remain free.”

A top presidential aide said that both the speech and the brief departure address were meant as messages to the coup plotters that Aquino will not succumb to a coup and that she has enough military support to “put up a bloody fight.”

“If they want to go ahead and do it,” the aide said, “let them do it--but we’ll undo it.”

As Aquino spoke Sunday, her military chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, placed every military base in the country on alert, canceling all military leaves and confining troops to barracks until Aquino returns to Manila on Thursday--all moves that reflected the heightened tension within both the nation and its increasingly confused armed forces.

The “red alert” order, which a military spokesman asserted was routine for all of Aquino’s trips outside the capital, came after an emergency three-hour conference at military headquarters in Manila. All the country’s senior armed forces commanders attended.

At the same time, several hundred fully armed combat troops took up positions Sunday night outside the Ministry of Defense building, and several of the commanders at Sunday’s meeting privately conceded that the deep splits, which have threatened to divide the military in recent weeks, remained.

The commanders said a coup is unlikely during Aquino’s absence, but they added that the military as a whole remains concerned with her approach to the guerrilla insurgency and with the presence of several Cabinet ministers whom they view as leftists or simply inept.

Aquino’s Sunday speech, delivered to the World Dental Congress at a seafront convention center, also appeared to flatly reject a series of demands presented to her by her controversial defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile. He told the president during a brief meeting Friday night that several young officers are impatient with her administration but that he would try to prevent a coup in her absence.

Enrile, often named as the figurehead leader of a possible coup, has repeatedly denied that he is involved in any plan to seize power.

Without naming Enrile or his heavily armed 700-man security group--which has taken the lead in challenging many of Aquino’s policies and whose leaders have privately warned of a coup in recent weeks--the president said, “I will not allow the new Armed Forces of the Philippines to be destroyed by a few misguided elements, if in fact they are planning to do anything.”

Aquino declared that the majority of the armed forces are behind her civilian government, which rose to power last February amid a military coup, supported by the Philippine Roman Catholic Church, against President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

And the 53-year-old housewife-turned-president reminded the 200,000-member armed forces that “the function of the soldier is to fight the enemies of the government--not to fight the very government it is ordained to serve.”

Such a coup, Aquino said, would only benefit the nation’s Communist insurgents, whom she similarly warned during her speech against taking any action to destabilize her government during her absence.

Leftist leaders announced last week that they would mobilize their urban street forces to oppose a military coup, and the military announced darkly Sunday night that large “armed partisan units” of the Communist New People’s Army had taken up underground positions in metropolitan Manila.

Message to Left, Right

A senior aide to the president said her speech was a clear message to both the leftists and the rightists that she and her internal presidential security group would actively fight any attempted coup.

“She has finally made it clear what the costs would be from such a coup,” said the aide, who asked not to be named. “If they (the coup plotters) are banking on a swift thing, a bloodless act that would avoid a mess, she just guaranteed them that it will be a mess.

“We can put up a pretty bloody fight. . . . We’re not just sitting ducks here. Anyone can take power, but as long as Cory opposes them, they cannot keep it. She still has the support of the people.”

One sign of that support poured into the streets of Manila on Sunday, as 15,000 Aquino supporters packed a downtown rally with placards that read “We Love Cory,” and “Yes for Cory.” Aquino declared in her speech that she may once again have to call on those people “to take to the streets” to support a presidency she described as “my contract with my people and my commitment to God.”

Underscores Crisis

There were negative aspects to Aquino’s speech, however. It clearly underscored that the nation is deep in crisis on the eve of a crucial state visit to a wealthy potential ally. And it served to illustrate that her young government is, as some analysts said, more unstable now than when it assumed power eight months ago as Marcos fled into exile.

The coup plot, in fact, took no one by surprise. It had been talked and written about for weeks in the foreign press, in talk shows on Philippine television and in every major Manila daily newspaper. Through it all, though, neither Aquino nor her top aides discussed it, leading many observers to suspect that Aquino feared that the coup would take place if she challenged the plotters openly.

“We are all in trouble,” said Rene Saguisag, special counsel to the president, when asked before the speech why Aquino had not reacted publicly to the rumors before Sunday.

“If we had done anything, we would have been out of power by now. The coalition is really very unstable.”

And in the very act of acknowledging the coup rumors, other analysts said, Aquino herself testified to the continuing instability in her government.

Rumors Divert Energies

Calling the rumors “a very pressing concern,” Aquino told the dentists’ convention Sunday night that such crises force her to divert the attention of her government from concrete policies and actions aimed at revitalizing the economy. She used the economy as her justification--despite the rumors of a coup--for going through with a state visit to Japan, where she hopes to get more foreign investment.

Further, most military analysts and even several of Aquino’s advisers suspect that the strategy of the plotters is focused more on threatening a move than on actually making one. And the threat alone, they said, already has served to destabilize the government.

There is, in fact, little evidence to indicate that the military factions opposed to Aquino ever intended to go through with a coup. According to military sources, the project was given the code name “God Save the Queen” because its goal would have been not to overthrow Aquino but to force the resignations of several of her controversial advisers--men who are equally unpopular among most Filipino businessmen and religious leaders who supported Aquino against Marcos.

In several recent interviews, Defense Minister Enrile has noted his love for chess and has implied that the coup rumors, which he helped fuel, were more strategy than substance.

Sees Psychological War

In an interview after Aquino’s speech, Deputy Defense Minister Rafael Ileto, a retired general who is close to Aquino, discounted the possibility of a coup this week. He labeled the incessant rumors psychological warfare.

“If they are thinking about anything, why do they announce it. . . ? “ he asked. “It’s just psy-war.” Ileto served for many years as Philippine ambassador to Thailand, where there have been frequent coups. “There is too much talk,” he said. “I have seen some coups, and you do not talk about it.”

Nonetheless, several military commanders confirmed that the plot by several of Enrile’s supporters remained in effect. Senior members of his internal security group met with him until late Sunday night, and an aide to Gen. Ramos, who has been dubbed “the man in the middle” of the Aquino-Enrile conflict, said the military commanders met Sunday primarily in an effort to keep the military united.

“I have no doubt they have plans,” a top Aquino adviser in the presidential palace said Sunday night. “I think they really were planning something, but talking about it was really very much part of their plan. They’re just trying to show they can pull off the whole coup without leaving their barracks.

“Their problem is to stage a coup. Our problem is to see that it fails.”

Ramos Key to Success

A key to the success of any such coup is clearly Ramos, who, despite private sniping by some of Enrile’s military supporters, remains the focal point of the armed forces.

Ramos’ pivotal role was described by political analyst Amando Doronila. “For Mrs. Aquino to keep power,” Doronila said Saturday, “she needs Ramos; for Enrile to seize power, he needs Ramos.”

In several meetings last week with Aquino, Enrile and top regional commanders, Ramos sought to defuse the plot. He warned the president that such a plan was real, and he warned Enrile that many armed forces units would oppose it, according to several civilian and military sources who attended some of the meetings.

On Thursday, Ramos moved decisively to publicly denounce the plot. He warned “military adventurists” who might attempt to take power that the military must remain united, but he was careful not to alienate Enrile and his forces.

“Make no mistake, Johnny and Eddie are very much together,” one Ramos aide said, using the nicknames of Enrile and Ramos. “Their goals are precisely the same. It’s only their approach that is different.”

Reached by a reporter at his home after Aquino’s speech Sunday night, Enrile was far more circumspect.

“I’m just going to keep quiet,” the 62-year-old defense minister said. Then, speaking of Aquino and her civilian advisers, Enrile added, “Maybe they’ll wake up tomorrow and find it’s all a dream.”

Then again, several of Enrile’s senior aides cautioned, maybe not.