‘Practically Kidnaped,’ Marcos Says; U.S. Accused of Meddling

Deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos accused the United States on Thursday of “practically kidnaping” him last February and said Washington should stop meddling in Philippine affairs.

Speaking in a telephone interview from his exile home in Hawaii, Marcos also said that Communist insurgents “have already taken over” the reins of power in Manila.

In the interview, which was broadcast on radio station DZEC, Marcos predicted that 1987 will bring a “violent explosion in the Philippines.

“There might come about a situation when the people will take the matter into their hands and then we will have a civil war,” he said.

Marcos, who ruled for 20 years until he was overthrown Feb. 25 in a popularly backed military uprising, said Washington had tricked him into leaving the country when he was flown by a U.S. helicopter to an American air base in the Philippines, then by American plane to Guam and on to Hawaii.

“I was deceived and practically kidnaped out of the Philippines,” Marcos said, adding he thought he was being airlifted to his home province of Ilocos Norte in the northern part of the country.

“Let us resolve that interventions like this will never be allowed by the Filipino people all over again,” he said. “Let us also resolve that the Filipinos be allowed to run their own internal affairs and that Filipinos will decide who shall be the ruler in our own country.”

Marcos said he and his wife, Imelda, were “in deep sorrow” that they could not be in the Philippines for the New Year.

In the interview, Marcos also discounted as a “propaganda ploy” the government’s $750-million suit against him. The suit, filed Monday seeks the biggest award of damages in Philippine history.

The court action, the first against Marcos in the Philippines, is intended to complement a restraining order issued by a U.S. district court blocking the sale of four Manhattan buildings and a Long Island estate until their true ownership is determined. Manila insists that the properties are owned by the Marcos family.

“They cannot touch those buildings,” Marcos said. “How can the courts of the Philippines have jurisdiction over those properties?”

Marcos insisted that the evidence “showed that the money used to buy those properties was borrowed by other parties, not Marcos.”

Marcos and his wife have been making almost daily broadcasts to their die-hard followers in the country over the Christmas-New Year’s period. They have both repeatedly vowed they will return to lead the country once again.