Move Before Key Vote Feared : Manila on Edge: Marcos Return, Coups Rumored

Here in the birthplace of exiled ruler Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippine military set up something of a homecoming present last week for the deposed dictator.

It wasn’t the welcome wagon.

At the end of the only runway at Laoag International Airport, a showcase built with some of the tens of millions of dollars that Marcos funneled to his home province, stood two full-sized army tanks and an armored personnel carrier. All three had their guns pointed straight down the runway.

It was just a precaution, local military leaders said, in case the rumors are true--rumors that Marcos, who ruled the Philippines with an iron fist for two decades before his people overthrew him a year ago, actually plans to sneak back into his homeland sometime within the next week or so and challenge the government of President Corazon Aquino.

But the artillery positioned in this provincial capital, 300 miles north of Manila, is also a symbol of the last-minute jitters shaking the nation’s capital as it counts down to a Feb. 2 constitutional referendum. The vote, Philippine political experts say, will do more to stabilize Aquino’s young government than any other event since she took power a year ago.

In the last two weeks, Manila residents have been bombarded every day with rumors of yet another coup plot against Aquino, whose government has been battered by such rumors every few months since she took office.

Nerves were stretched even tighter Thursday when about 10,000 farmers demonstrating for land reform were met with gunfire from troops guarding Malacanang Palace, the president’s office. Fifteen were killed and 94 were wounded in the shooting, which deepened immeasurably the administration’s problems.

The most recent rumors focus not only on disgruntled military officers and supporters of ousted Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, but also on a possible return by Marcos and an armed move by the ragtag remnants of his supporters to grab power before Aquino finally consolidates her rule.

The theory behind the rumors is based on the proposed new constitution itself, which defines Aquino’s term as running until June, 1992.

Legal Issues

The new charter, drafted by 48 men and women appointed by Aquino, would give her enemies less legal standing to challenge her right to rule, many Filipino political analysts have said.

If a coup comes before the constitution is ratified, the rebel force could justify it by saying Aquino’s was a revolutionary government that dissolved the country’s old constitution last March and substituted for it a temporary charter that has no basis in law.

In a nation of 30,000 lawyers, political and diplomatic observers say, such logic is compelling.

Even though Aquino laughed off persistent rumors that a coup would be staged last weekend, declaring Jan. 18 through her press secretary that “the mere fact I was not wakened up means there was really nothing to call my attention to,” her military leaders clearly are taking the rumors of coup plots, and a Marcos homecoming, far more seriously.

Catalyst for Countercoup

Many Filipinos are actually beginning to suspect that, one year after he fled a presidential palace under siege for exile in Honolulu, Marcos actually may return to the Philippines before Feb. 2 to serve as a catalyst for a counterrevolution against the woman primarily responsible for his ouster.

Defense Minister Rafael Ileto, explaining the military’s decision to place metropolitan Manila under “red alert” last weekend and station tanks at Laoag International Airport, told reporters: “It was only a rumor. The only thing is, we reacted since we cannot afford not to react.”

Military Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos went further, actually confirming that yet another coup was, indeed, in the offing last weekend.

The military “took precautionary measures to forestall an alleged (Marcos) loyalist and Muslim rebel plot to sow violence in the city,” said Gen. Ramos, who sided with Aquino last November in preempting an earlier alleged plot against her government by military forces loyal to Enrile.

‘Abduct or Liquidate’

A detailed version of last weekend’s rumored coup plot was contained in a confidential military report obtained by several journalists. The report states that five brigadier generals and a colonel have been meeting secretly with Marcos loyalists, recruiting military personnel and plotting to “abduct or liquidate” Ramos and, eventually, overthrow Aquino.

Enrile has not been linked directly with the most recent plot. However, the 62-year-old, articulate former defense minister, who was instrumental in driving Marcos from power last year, has been condemning Aquino’s government and her constitution in almost daily speeches throughout the country.

In searching for an explanation for the Aquino government’s vulnerability to plots, both rumored and real, the nation’s prestigious daily, the Manila Chronicle, declared in an editorial last week that the blame lies with Aquino herself.

“What seems to be fueling the imagination of the public is the failure of the government itself to put a final resolution to the real attempted coups,” the newspaper declared.

Blaming Aquino

The Chronicle, along with several other newspapers that are considered pro-Aquino, criticized the government for failing to punish the 300 soldiers and Marcos-loyalist leaders who participated in the takeover of the historic Manila Hotel--the first step in a plan to overthrow Aquino last July.

The soldiers were sentenced to 30 push-ups after they surrendered. Similarly, no one was arrested or charged in the alleged plot last November that led to Enrile’s firing.

“Like a comic serial or a cliff-hanger movie,” the editorial declared, “the supposed coups never seem to find a final rest. . . . Either the present administration is enjoying the state of a threatened existence or it is partly participating in the fun of playing on the nerves of citizens.”

Marcos supporters say there may be a grain of truth in such allegations. They charge that Aquino’s military and civilian aides are spreading the coup rumors themselves to divert attention from failing peace talks with Communist rebels and renewed fighting by Muslim secessionists on the eve of so crucial a vote.

Charge, Countercharge

For their part, Aquino supporters countercharge that it is the Marcos loyalists who are fueling the rumors to give a firmer resolve to voters who oppose Aquino’s constitution.

Perhaps nowhere in the Philippines are the causes and effects of the rumor war clearer than in Laoag, the capital of Marcos’ home province of Ilocos Norte, which Marcos used as the foundation for his long-invincible national political machine.

“We Ilocanos are not only sentimental people but also clannish,” said Castor Raval, a staunch Aquino supporter whom the president appointed as governor of Ilocos Norte when she took power. “Whatever sins Marcos might have committed can easily be forgotten by them.

“But the Marcos loyalists are using this alleged return of Marcos as a ploy, a scheme to convince the people to vote ‘no’ in the coming (constitutional) plebiscite.”

‘Political Purposes’

The region’s Roman Catholic leader, Bishop Edmundo Abaya, agreed.

“This talk is all for political purposes,” he said. Aquino’s opponents are using a Marcos homecoming to convince local officials and farmers that if they campaign against the constitution, Marcos will reward them when he gets home, Abaya added.

He continued: “The referendum has become a political issue. They’re not hammering the constitution itself, they’re hammering the personalities, and they need Marcos as a personality to go against Cory (Aquino).”

According to Abaya, who succeeded for many years in remaining both a friend to Marcos and a political neutral, “it makes no sense” for Marcos to sneak into his home province.

“If he’s willing to die, as he says he is, why doesn’t he just come by a regular flight?” the bishop asked. “Nobody will harm him. I don’t see why he has to sneak in. He’s not a guerrilla. He’s not young. He’s sickly. If he comes in legally and is arrested, that would be good for him politically.”

‘Not Coming Back’

Asked why, indeed, Marcos does not return legally, Abaya said, “Because he’s not coming back.”

Rudolfo Farinas could not have disagreed more emphatically. Farinas was the mayor of Laoag under Marcos and the best friend of Marcos’ son, Ferdinand E. Marcos Jr., who served as the appointed governor of Ilocos Norte before he fled with his father into exile.

“There is no question about it,” Farinas said in his palatial hilltop home in Laoag last week. “President Marcos is coming back. He told me on Dec. 31 that he was coming back before the plebiscite. He didn’t say when and where, but he said he was coming back.”

Asked how his fellow Ilocanos could still support a man who allegedly stole more than $2 billion from his country while president, Farinas said: “He may be a Robin Hood to them. He steals from some people, but gave it to them in irrigation projects and roads.”

And, to skeptics who contend that it is lunacy to believe that a man so old, so sick and so discredited could return to lead a revolution, Farinas said, “For a lot of people who don’t really know the guy, it would be really something bordering on insanity to think he’d come back.

“But the guy’s a fighter. He is smart. If it’s true he has billions of dollars, anyone with billions of dollars is a force to be reckoned with. He’s a scheming man. I’m sure he’s cooking up something.”

Whether or not Marcos returns, though, Farinas said he is certain that Aquino’s constitution will be defeated badly in his hometown, which voted 43,000 to 888 against Aquino in last year’s presidential elections.

The former mayor’s claim apparently was borne out in hundreds of signs and pieces of graffiti on walls declaring “no” throughout the city. Several farmers even went so far as to paint the word “no” in large red letters on the sides of their water buffalo.

Outside Gov. Raval’s provincial capital building, where the governor placed a sign that urged, “Vote Yes to Fight Dictatorship and Communism,” the Marcos loyalists erected an even larger and slicker sign that declared, “Vote No and There Will Be No Problem.”

More than a dozen laborers and businessmen interviewed at random on Laoag’s city streets were emphatic about the evils of Aquino’s new constitution. But few could articulate them. Even fewer had actually read the document.

“I’m voting no,” said one farmer with broken teeth and a tattered T-shirt when asked about the upcoming referendum. “No for Aquino. Yes for Marcos.”

“Why Marcos?” the farmer was asked. “He’s gone.”

“True,” the farmer said. “But he will be back in time to vote.”