Aquino Replaces Minister but Keeps Him as Adviser

President Corazon Aquino on Wednesday replaced a minister criticized by the military for his leftist political views, but he was retained in the Cabinet as a special adviser.

Aquilino Pimentel, minister of local governments, was replaced by former legislator Jaime Ferrer, 70, a businessman whose career in public service began after World War II. Ferrer had turned down earlier requests to serve in her government.

“It’s a balancing of interests. She had a job to do and she had to do it,” Pimentel said of his ouster from the powerful post in a reorganization that began with the firing of the country’s defense minister.

“There is a call for blood. It might as well be mine, not the president’s,” he said.

Pimentel presided over a wholesale purge of 75 provincial governors and mayors of 60 cities and 1,300 towns--most of whom were allied with former President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The military branded the purge as destabilizing.

“It was a job that had to be done. It was a no-win situation,” Pimentel said.

National Affairs Adviser

Aquino said Pimentel was one of the “chief architects” of the “people’s victory” that ousted Marcos in February, and she named the former minister an adviser on national affairs with his Cabinet rank intact. Pimentel said he would counsel Aquino on “matters affecting national interest.”

Aquino said she would make further Cabinet changes in a reorganization initiated Nov. 23 with the ouster of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile after an aborted coup plot.

She made no reference in a brief televised address to left-leaning Labor Minister Augusto Sanchez, but labor leaders with whom she met privately Wednesday said she also was considering firing him.

Ferrer, the oldest member of Aquino’s 26-member Cabinet, served as Marcos’ executive assistant from 1966 to 1968 but broke with him when Marcos imposed martial law in 1972. He was elected to Parliament in 1984 on the opposition ticket, and Aquino lauded his “fearless stand against dictatorships.”

Aquino also announced that she has annulled the “hopelessly tainted” voters list used in the Feb. 7 presidential election and that new registration will be needed for a constitutional plebiscite next year.