Aquino Future in Philippines

Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s government has reached a critical fork in the road. The “honeymoon” is definitely over and the kaleidoscope of changes there appears to be entering another of the classic stages of most radical revolutions in history.

What we are seeing now is the moderate reform period in which major changes in the state and economy will be made but as these reforms prove too little too late, Aquino will increasingly find herself caught and torn apart in the conflict and power struggle between the extreme right and left.

At this juncture, she’s walking a tightrope; she must make substantive economic changes, such as redistribute the land among the peasants and democratize the industrial sector, hopefully setting a good example by breaking up her own family’s large estate, and yet at the same time not alienate the powerful military to the point of it reunifying and seizing power.

She may be able to pull it off with extraordinary political footwork, but unfortunately and tragically history is not on her side. She could be ground down to the level where the military completely divides, civil war breaks out as people choose sides and the highly disciplined New People’s Army and centralized Communist Party rush in to fill the resulting power vacuum.

Cory Aquino could well be to the Philippine Revolution what Alexander Kerensky was to the Russian Revolution. Moreover, American troops may also be sent to intervene, as they did in Russia in 1918 (and Vietnam in the 1960s) but they will likely be in the long run as successful in the hot jungles of the Philippines as they were in the snows of Siberia.

LORNE WARD

Garden Grove