Troops on Alert; Aquino Asks for Vote Landslide

The Philippines was put under military red alert Saturday, and President Corazon Aquino, appealing for support for her candidates in Monday’s congressional balloting, predicted that the vote will be “the first honest and peaceful elections” in this country in more than 15 years.

The armed forces chief of staff, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, announced the military alert and said that “there continue to be threats from the (Communist) New People’s Army and other armed groups” that “may exploit the three-day period before, during and after election day.”

Aquino Asks for Prayers

Aquino, addressing a final campaign rally that was nationally televised, asked this Roman Catholic nation to pray for members of her party running for a new 24-member Senate and 200-member House of Representatives in a campaign that pits her handpicked candidates against coalitions of both the strong political left and right.

Asking for a landslide victory, the president cited her own record during the 15 months since she took office from Ferdinand E. Marcos, calling herself “Auntie Thrifty” and declaring that her administration spent $8 million less during the first two months of this year than Marcos did in the two months before he was overthrown in February, 1986.

“My critics say, ‘She doesn’t know anything, she is weak, she does not move the economy,’ ” Aquino declared. “But I say to these people, I am thrifty. If you like the way I have run my administration in the last 15 months, if you trust Cory Aquino, I am pleading with you to elect all 24 of my candidates.”

Aquino also appealed to the armed forces to remain neutral in the face of intelligence reports that a small group of military dissidents may be plotting an attempt to sabotage the nation’s first congressional elections since Marcos proclaimed martial law in 1972.

In his announcement, Ramos said renegade soldiers still loyal to Marcos may be plotting election day violence to disrupt what the government hopes will be clean, honest, peaceful and credible voting. But he added that the numbers of dissidents are “diminishing.”

50 Slain During Campaign

So far, at least 50 candidates, campaign leaders and soldiers have been killed in pre-election violence, Ramos said, noting that it was nevertheless a record low--less than a third of the death toll during last year’s tainted presidential contest between Marcos and Aquino.

More than one-third of the nation’s 1,600 municipal districts were declared “critical” or “sensitive” areas Saturday, and thousands of soldiers were deployed to 67 municipalities that Ramos said are considered “very critical”--areas where the threat of armed guerrillas has combined with intense political contests and a proliferation of firearms and private armies.

During a Saturday press conference, Ramos appealed to the 200,000 members of the armed forces to remain nonpartisan. He asked the 26 million Filipino voters “to remain calm and sober,” and he called Monday’s polls “an unprecedented opportunity to prove to ourselves and to the outside world the reality of the vigor and stability of Philippine democracy.”

And as the final day of campaigning passed, Manila and most of the nation remained calm and festive.

Aquino was clad in her traditional yellow campaign dress Saturday night in downtown Manila when she personally closed her administration’s lively but largely issue-free campaign.

Aquino Majority Predicted

Each of the president’s 24 senatorial candidates, who are expected to win at least 18 seats in what analysts predict will be a landslide senatorial win for Aquino, took turns on the stage. Most of them had been detained or exiled under Marcos, and they spoke of the ghosts of the past, including the deposed dictator and the man who was once Marcos’ most important political enemy, Aquino’s husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr.

Campaign aides said it was part of an effort to cast Monday’s balloting as a classic battle between good and lingering evil in which personalities are all-important.

“In the crooked mind of Ferdinand Marcos, he’s still the real president of the Philippines,” shouted candidate Jovito Salonga, who spent many years in exile in Los Angeles. “If you don’t want this, vote for the 24 senatorial candidates of President Aquino.”

Candidate Raul Manglapus, another former exile who lived in Washington for 14 years, challenged the rightist opposition Senate slate led by former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, whom Aquino fired last November.

“Where were you (Enrile) in 1970 when we fought Marcos. . . ?” Manglapus shouted. “Were you with the nation or were you with Marcos?”

Voice Nationalistic Theme

Hoarse from intensive campaigning, the president’s candidates also sounded a nationalistic theme.

Voters, Manglapus declared, should tell themselves as they cast their ballots, “I am a Filipino, and I am going to teach the world another lesson in democracy. . . . I am going to build a republic that is greater than America; greater than Japan.”

Saturday’s events climaxed a slick, image-conscious campaign that has virtually paralyzed the government as the administration has mobilized much of the nation for what Aquino calls a crucial step in the nation’s return to democracy after nearly two decades of dictatorship.

For the last two months, a record number of candidates--1,983, at last count--representing more than 70 parties covering the whole political spectrum have campaigned across this nation of 7,100 islands. Almost every building, lamp post and car bumper has been covered with campaign stickers, and the airwaves have been filled with jingles, slogans and other gimmicks.

At stake is the makeup of a legislative body with unprecedented power under a new constitution, drafted last year after Marcos’ fall and approved by referendum three months ago.

Campaign Issues Scarce

The campaign has been virtually devoid of issues.

“The issues simply do not count this time,” said Paul Aquino, the president’s brother-in-law and campaign director for her People Power political coalition. “It’s a beauty contest.”

Indeed, front-runners in the Senate race include three movie actors, among them another Aquino brother-in-law, Agapito. Other favored candidates are former beauty queens, colorful and powerful regional political bosses known as “warlords” and dozens of prominent politicians idolized after they were jailed or driven into exile under Marcos.

Others, like former Defense Minister Enrile, are heroes of the February, 1986, uprising that toppled Marcos, or relatives of those heroes, like pro-Aquino candidate Leticia Ramos Shahani, sister of the armed forces chief of staff.

Campaign strategies have not focused on such pressing issues as the Communist insurgency, escalating poverty and acute unemployment, but on names, most of them repeated in catchy disco jingles night and day over dozens of radio stations.

TV Plays Big Role

Never before has television been so important in a Philippine election. With that medium now reaching 35% of the population, otherwise sedate and cerebral politicians have danced the cha-cha to brass bands, played Robin Hood-style gangsters or sat with Bibles on their laps talking about God’s will in politics.

The only party consistently addressing the issues has been the newly formed, leftist People’s Party, but even its candidates have appeared on stage with Filipino rock bands playing revolutionary songs to cheering student crowds.

Beyond this frivolous veneer, however, the impact of Monday’s voting will be historic and far-reaching.

The elections will shift the focus of political power from the presidency to the legislature for the first time since Aquino proclaimed a revolutionary government in March, 1986, abolishing the old constitution and National Assembly and dismissing thousands of pro-Marcos mayors and governors.

A Powerful Legislature

Under the new constitution, the Senate and House will enjoy powers that have been vested in the presidency since the Philippines became independent from the United States in 1946.

There are 99 provisions in the new charter that contain the phrases “as may be provided by law” or “as congress may provide.” According to legal experts, that gives the new legislature so much power that it conceivably could relegate Aquino to the status of figurehead.

The constitution prohibits the president from suspending the right of habeas corpus or imposing martial law for longer than 60 days. Marcos did both, keeping the country under martial law for nine years ending in 1981. The new charter also makes it far easier for congress to impeach the president.

Such powers for congress help explain why Aquino has urged voters to elect all 24 of her pro-administration senatorial candidates. That wish to squeeze out all opposition has been criticized as dictatorial, but Aquino justifies it, as Marcos once did a similar appeal, by saying that opposition will emerge from inside her own governing coalition as its members gradually break away.

That kind of political realignment is expected to occur after the election, but that has not blunted the opposition’s criticism.

Enrile Leads Critics

Led by Enrile, the articulate standard-bearer of the rightists, Aquino’s opponents say she is overlooking the importance of present opposition as a key institution in an emerging democratic system. If the opposition is entirely excluded from power, they say, the nation will be no different from what it was under Marcos, and Aquino will risk a violent backlash from armed sectors of the right.

Aquino’s response, repeated often during the last two months, is: “If Cory Aquino is doing a good job, why should there be a need for an opposition?”

The election will also be viewed as an important barometer by the political left, which is participating in the electoral process for the first time.

Running under a coalition called the Alliance for New Politics, the country’s top leftist labor, peasant and student leaders have declared that the election could have a major effect on the Communist insurgency, which has killed hundreds of Filipinos since a temporary cease-fire ended in February.

“We believe that if the election is fair, there is a very good chance for us to be included in the 24 Senate winners,” said Crispin Beltran, a candidate who also heads the strong, leftist May First Movement, a labor union. “We have a mass base of 3.5 million people, which is highly mobilizable.

Sees Effect on Insurgency

“If we win some key races, I think the armed insurgency will be somewhat mitigated. The causes of the insurgency, after all, are the main things we, as candidates, are seeking to resolve.

“But, if we fail, we are still committed and pledged to pursue our struggle in the parliament of the streets . . . and there is a possibility of radicalization, especially if the militarization of the countryside continues. We even feel that eventually a civil war may erupt.”

Although the left is expected to win several lower house seats in districts where the Communist New People’s Army is strong, few analysts predict that it is strong enough to win any nationally elected senatorial seats from an electorate still steeped in conservative and clannish personality politics.

That longstanding trait of Philippine politics helps explain the forecast of victories for several candidates who were once fervent Marcos loyalists. Popular film actor Joseph Estrada, for example, was one of Marcos’ staunchest allies, and, as mayor of the Manila district of San Juan, he led Marcos loyalist rallies even after Aquino had come to office and Marcos had fled into exile.

Expected to Win Easily

When the ballots are counted, even Aquino’s top analysts predict Estrada will rank among the top five Senate winners, mainly because of his frequent and much-loved film role as a Charles Bronson-style character.

Arturo Tolentino, Marcos’ vice presidential running mate in last year’s tainted elections who later led an attempted coup against Aquino, is considered a possible Senate winner because he is well known to the voters as an expert in constitutional law.

Progressive Filipino political analysts have cited such political realities in concluding that, despite the largely middle-class revolt that drove Marcos from power last year, the nation’s political consciousness is almost unchanged.

Candidates still spend millions of dollars on their campaigns, and most of the crowds at political rallies still demand the disco-dance routines and fireworks shows that characterized Marcos-era politics.

Campaign director Paul Aquino concedes that in at least 80% of the congressional races, it has been “politics as usual.” He adds that the president hopes the next five years will bring some change.

Computerized Marketing

In the meantime, the Aquino political machine is exploiting the old politics and improving upon it with slick, computerized, Madison Avenue-style strategies, high-tech pre-election analyses and what Paul Aquino jokingly calls “more sophisticated dirty tricks.”

Every pro-administration candidate is, in the words of one senatorial hopeful, “running on President Aquino’s dress-tails”--that, and developing punchy catch phrases to set themselves apart.

“I’ve been telling our candidates to keep their campaigns simple,” Paul Aquino said. “Say your name as many times as you can in three minutes, tell them you’re Cory’s candidate and then get the hell off the stage before you confuse them.

“And never mention the names of your opponents, even to criticize. Mudslinging is a thing of the past. The Filipino voter is too sophisticated for that now. In this election, name recognition is everything.

Name Recall a Problem

“It’s very difficult for our candidates, many of whom are new to the voters, to compete for that name recall against personalities like Johnny Enrile, whose names have been on the front pages every day for the past 20 years.”

In spite of the remnants of old politics, few analysts expect the rampant vote-buying, violence and fraud that accompanied many of the elections under Marcos. But Aquino and the opposition do have some new tricks planned for election day.

“The vote-buying is in a different form now,” Paul Aquino said. “It’s not like the old days when it was blatant--handing over a 50-peso note when the guy is going into the voting booth.

“Now you appoint them as poll watchers. We pay the voter to work on election day as our party representative and make sure the voting is honest and clean. Now that guy is going to vote for us, and so is his whole family.

“And believe me, that’s the secret to this election. The one who has the most watchers on Monday will win.”