Corazon Aquino: The Story of a Revolution<i> by Lucy Komisar (Braziller: $16.95; 251 pp.)</i>

During last year’s dramatic Marcos-Aquino contest, veteran Philippines-watchers were bemused to see such convulsive journalistic interest in a topic that had previously been largely underplayed if not ignored in the American press. They should not have been surprised to see what next occurred in the editorial warrens of New York’s Publishers Row. Before People Power, publishers expressed as little interest in the smoldering Philippines as they had in books on the Vietnam War in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. On Third Avenue, the bidding wars were under way even before anyone had an accurate count of Imelda Marcos’ footwear. That flurry over, non-superstar journalists trudged from office to office, proposals in hand, until most found a home.

As a result, readers can look forward to a dozen or more books on Cory Aquino, the Marcoses, the February revolution and its aftermath--including Cory’s own ghostwritten autobiography. A major PBS documentary series (on the style of Stanley Karnow’s “Vietnam: A History”), later this year, should boost readers’ interest.

One of the first books is by journalist Lucy Komisar (her third, having previously written on feminism and on public welfare). It’s an excellent entry to what will become a weighted-down bookshelf on the subject. The cachet of being early is always balanced by the danger of being caught by hasty analysis or tripped by careless writing or editing, but Komisar’s biography seems to have been rushed to our local bookstores without egregious errors. And it’s pretty up-to-the-minute: Her sources include several interviews she recorded in Manila last December and January, touching on events of only three months ago. Komisar’s biography of Cory Aquino is unauthorized; the Philippine president, cooperating in her own first-person account, would not consent to interviews and instructed most of her immediate family to follow suit. However, the author benefited from many other insiders and seems to have neatly sidestepped obstacles placed in her path.

Inevitably, the narrative begins on Aug. 21, 1983, when former senator and exiled oppositionist Benigno Aquino returned to Manila and his death on the airport ramp service stairs, a tragedy from which came Corazon Aquino’s political birth and her nation’s redemption from the 20-year reign of President Ferdinand Marcos. Moving the reader briskly over many preceding and subsequent events--Cory Aquino’s early years as a studious debutante, her marriage to the personable, aggressive “Ninoy” Aquino, her widowhood and gradual accession as political activist--the narrative intensifies its focus as events moved the Philippines toward Marcos’ final electoral campaign. By midway in the book, the Marcoses are in exile and Aquino is president; this means that the remaining half of the book deals with her first year in office.

Starting last summer, President Aquino was confronted with three coup attempts and insurgent peace talks that more resembled Ping-Pong matches. Events were much more complicated than they seemed. And those with whom Aquino contended--young right-wing colonels, Muslim separatists, and Communist guerrillas, not to forget former Defense Minister J. P. Enrile--proved to be better at press relations than she, with the result that most Americans received a distorted picture.

As this book, subsequent events, and hindsight now shows, the relative threats to government stability were in the above order of importance. Most contemporary U.S. accounts reversed that order, placing Enrile first and Communists second; meanwhile, the ambitious young colonels pulled strings while nearly everyone else (especially journalists) danced. Now the guerrillas have returned to the mountains to wage war, eschewing dialogue, and Enrile--who has never won an election--prepares for Monday’s parliamentary contest. But the colonels seem to still be hanging around, to Aquino’s peril. One lesson of Komisar’s book is that they should be scattered to the Philippines’ smallest attache posts in places like Outer Mongolia.

Another of many services in this book is this: In its view into Aquino’s decision-making process, the president emerges as a much stronger figure than the sweet cipher with an apron that the U.S. media has promulgated. And the reader will come to understand how Aquino has all but bested her nation’s patriarchal political system, and why the Filipino cultural pattern of utang na loob (debt of gratitude) has often tripped, if not crippled, her decisions.

I’m obliged to quibble, however. Komisar underestimates the importance of Marcos’ fake war record and hidden wealth in crystallizing popular opposition beginning in the summer of 1985, when U.S. reporters began uncovering the stories, which were of course relayed to the Philippines. The opposition by then had lost momentum derived from fury over Benigno Aquino’s murder. Despite his illness, Marcos was perceived as indestructible--but with these revelations, which continued up to the week before election day, the popular fear of Marcos and his machine crumbled. Significantly, it was the failed parliamentary move to impeach him in August, 1985 (after initial reports of his stolen millions), that spurred the old warrior to announce his snap election in the first place. My only other quibble is that this book’s solid, journalistic narrative--full of coups, plots, assassinations, and an unforgettable electoral campaign--lacks drama.

But it’s nonetheless important. Last year, during the election campaign in Manila, a Filipino writer joked to me that “You can’t see the sky for the parachutes.” She referred to the many so-called “parachute journalists” descending on Manila with no knowledge of her country or its politics, let alone prior interest before the media onslaught began. Now, as the many forthcoming books on the Philippines begin to pile up, blocking the sun, that writer will likely remark similarly. While it remains to be seen if a lot of yellow ribbons will be flying on Publishers Row after the books contend in the marketplace, if all are as conscientiously done as this one, our understanding of the Philippines will grow.