Leftist, Rightist Leaders Blame Aquino in Deaths of 15 Land-Reform Marchers

Candles flickered in the street Friday where Philippine soldiers had gunned down peasant demonstrators 24 hours earlier, and the leaders of both the left and right insisted that President Corazon Aquino must take full responsibility for one of the bloodiest police actions in Philippine history.

Aquino, who said she was “deeply saddened” by the killing of at least 15 unarmed protesters, canceled all engagements and official appointments Friday. She met with military commanders to analyze intelligence reports that more violence may be planned in the days ahead in an effort to disrupt the scheduled Feb. 2 referendum on a proposed new constitution.

Aquino’s military chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, acknowledged Friday that some of his soldiers had overreacted in firing into a crowd of 10,000 peasants demanding land reform.

Commission at Work

A special non-governmental investigating commission appointed by Aquino began gathering videotapes, photographs and eyewitness accounts of the shooting. According to most of these, the protesters were unarmed and were lying down or retreating when they were fired on.

Reliable sources told reporters that according to ballistics tests, handguns as well as rifles were fired at the crowd indicating that military personnel other than the marines in the palace guard were involved. Aquino’s press secretary announced that the marines, who are issued M-16 rifles, have been removed from the palace detail.

Leaders of half a dozen leftist groups held press conferences and issued a flurry of statements throughout the day. They condemned Aquino and her government in the strongest language they have used since Aquino came to power in the coup that ousted the government of President Ferdinand E. Marcos last February.

Polarization Seen

According to several political analysts, Friday’s developments reflect a sharply increased polarization of the political extremes here, an alienation of Aquino’s centrist forces from both the left and the right.

The National Democratic Front, the leftist coalition that had been negotiating with the government to try to find a political solution to 18 years of guerrilla warfare, said in a statement:

“Yesterday the Aquino government stripped off its mask of democratic liberalism and bared itself to be no more than a deceitful successor to the fascist Marcos dictatorship.”

The leftists announced Thursday that the negotiations had been suspended indefinitely as a result of the killings, and on Friday the National Democratic Front closed its office and went underground.

‘Premeditated Crime’

“The Aquino government must bear the entire responsibility for this premeditated crime,” the front’s Friday statement said. “ . . . In the space of just a few months, it has proven itself to the masses of workers and peasants, and the millions of small people, to be a subservient tool of U.S. imperialism and the repressive instrument of reactionary class rule.”

A statement by the Movement of Filipino Farmers, the group that sponsored the march on the palace that led to Thursday’s killings, declared: “We cannot but hold the Aquino government responsible for this dastardly massacre. . . . She has not shown any sympathetic gesture to the Filipino peasantry. Yesterday she chose to answer our demands with arms and bullets.”

The movement, along with several other highly organized leftist groups, has scheduled a “massive indignation rally” for Monday to protest the killings.

An American minister, Neill Richards of the United Church of Christ in New Jersey, who led a group of 13 visiting American clergymen accompanying the peasants Thursday, told reporters that five members of the group “observed from five different vantage points that the farmers were not armed” when the shooting began.

“We were shocked by the unnecessary violence of the military and police,” Richards said.

The leftist People’s Party, which was organized last year by former members of the Communist Party of the Philippines to take part in future elections, also condemned Aquino personally for what it called “the brutal massacre.”

“President Aquino has chosen instead to campaign for the ratification of the draft charter and left her government and military to answer with gunfire the peasants’ legitimate demands, their frustrations, their desperations,” the party said in a statement. “The Aquino government cannot wash its hands of its responsibility for this bloody incident.

“In less than one year, the Aquino regime has outdone its fascist predecessor in the scale of violence against the people right in Metro Manila.”

‘Resurgence of Fascism’

For the first time, the party did not blame the incident solely on disgruntled military supporters of ousted Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, who was accused by the left of instigating last year’s slaying of leftist labor leader Rolando Olalia.

“The highly volatile situation created by yesterday’s event is fertile ground for the resurgence of fascism, not necessarily from the Marcos-Enrile forces but also and, in fact, more probably from within the present government and its military establishment,” the party said.

Enrile issued a statement criticizing Aquino and the military for their handling of the protest march.

The killings, he said, “could have been avoided by the prudent exercise of enlightened yet firm leadership, and the use of calibrated measures in dealing with an evolving critical situation.

‘Remove the Masks’

“We should not look for scapegoats in the ranks of our lowly soldiers and officers. . . . It is about time that we remove the masks worn by those in our national leadership and expose the true nature and the breadth of their capacity to run the affairs of our republic. They can no longer hide behind a false image.”

The Roman Catholic Church, which is the foundation of President Aquino’s support, made no effort to fix blame for Thursday’s incident, but Cardinal Jaime Sin warned his countrymen that the situation in the Philippines is now “extremely volatile,” and he urged the Filipino people to remain calm.

Metropolitan Manila was placed under full alert early Friday to prevent Aquino’s opponents, on either the right or the left, from taking advantage of the uncertainty. The commanding general of the Central Luzon region north of Manila put his troops in a state of readiness to thwart any move against the government by “disgruntled elements of the military.”

Aides to the president said she was still “extremely upset” Friday.

Aquino, who rose to power after a prolonged protest movement that included dozens of street rallies similar to Thursday’s peasant march, issued no statement Friday and was not seen in public. She canceled a scheduled speech before a civic group.