Philippines on Alert as Vote Begins : Leftist, Rightist Rebels Pose Threat to Charter Ballot

With the Philippines’ entire armed forces on red alert, voters began trooping to the polls this morning to decide whether to accept or reject a constitution that President Corazon Aquino asserts will bring stability to her land for the first time since she was swept into power by a populist revolt 343 days ago.

Amid reports by military authorities that Communist insurgents were isolating remote towns to disrupt the polling in rebel-controlled areas, the armed forces also faced a continuing threat to the voting from as many as 300 ultra-rightist renegade troops still on the loose after last week’s mutiny.

Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, the armed forces chief of staff, issued orders to his troops Sunday to shoot armed renegades who refuse to surrender.

Gunships, Troops Dispatched

He also sent helicopter gunships and three full infantry battalions to scour the Sierra Madre range north of Manila, where the mutinous soldiers are believed to have fled after their failed attacks on military and broadcast installations in the capital.

Aquino and her aides have said that the rebellion was part of a last-ditch assault backed by deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos to destabilize her government in the week before today’s crucial vote.

The referendum has been billed as a determined effort by Aquino’s moderate government to prove its popular strength against armed threats from both the extreme political left and the extreme right.

Although elementary schoolteachers supervising the polls in Manila’s densely populated districts reported brisk early voting, it was too soon to project whether Aquino will get the large turnout that she needs to claim a new mandate.

Logistical Nightmare

The National Election Commission, confronted with the logistical nightmare of gathering ballots from more than 100 far-flung islands and thousands of towns accessible only by foot, said final results will not be known until 48 hours after the polls close.

In an effort to prevent cheating--a staple of past Philippine elections--polling officers were staining the index finger of each voter with indelible ink, the officials said.

However, leaders of the right-wing “no” campaign, among them ousted Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, warned that Aquino’s local and regional officials are likely to manipulate the results of the referendum because “they simply have too much at stake.”

The nation’s 23,200 Communist rebels, whose leaders say the new constitution is elitist and “anti-people,” began burning bridges and blocking major highways to prevent voters from reaching the polls in several regions of the country, the military reported.

(In Manila, police said three grenades exploded Sunday night in the suburbs--one near a Roman Catholic church and two near an office building that houses DZRH, a private radio station, the Associated Press reported. No one was injured, and police said they had no suspects. Manila police said they also arrested two men and seized 120 sticks of dynamite after learning of a plot to disrupt the voting.)

‘Most Turbulent’

“Today’s plebiscite is the most turbulent we ever had since the first constitution was ratified in 1935,” prominent political analyst Amando Doronila said.

Doronila added that the country’s second constitution, drafted in 1971 by a commission loyal to Marcos to perpetuate his regime, was “extraordinarily undemocratic.” He said today’s vote is a rare opportunity for Filipinos to bring democracy back to their nation.

In today’s editorials, most of the national press said the actual outcome of the voting is not as important as “the way the plebiscite will be conducted--whether it would indeed show the voluntary will of the people.”

“This becomes more crucial today as the plebiscite is conducted in a crisis situation, when forces of destabilization connected to the deposed dictator have already tried to prevent it from taking place,” the prestigious Manila Chronicle said.

Tossed Out Old Document

Aquino, who challenged Marcos one year ago in a presidential election so tainted by corruption that it still is not clear who won, threw out the Marcos constitution in March, one month after a civilian-military revolt propelled her to power. She then appointed a 48-member commission that spent three months drafting the document being placed before voters today.

Enrile, who says he opposes Aquino’s constitution largely because it was not drafted by elected commissioners, predicted Sunday that the document will be rejected by 60% of the 25 million voters--provided the government does not cheat. However, few political analysts agreed.

Studies show that Filipino voters have never rejected a referendum. Straw polls released by the government Sunday projected that the constitution will pass with 65% of the vote. Aquino’s national affairs minister, Aquilino Pimentel, predicted an 80% margin.

Most of Aquino’s Cabinet ministers, however, said that at least 60% of the voters must ratify the constitution if it is to be viewed as a mandate for the president, whose term is fixed by the new document until June, 1992.

Aquino, who traveled this morning to her 12,000-acre family hacienda in Tarlac, north of Manila, to cast her ballot, has predicted victory without specifying a percentage.

Last week, she called on the Filipino people to “again guard the ballot boxes with your lives, if necessary.” And, in her final appeal before 200,000 supporters in a Manila park on Saturday, Aquino asked her middle- and working-class constituency to prove to her armed enemies that “we are the majority.”