‘People Power’ Speaks in Varied Accents : Seoul and Manila--2 Paths to Political Change

Tomas Padilla, the Philippine ambassador to South Korea, watched with special interest as the anti-government drama unfolded in the streets here--first tear gas and then celebrations.

Padilla listened as opposition leaders, Roman Catholic priests and student activists echoed the rhetoric that had been heard earlier in the Philippines, where “people power” brought down President Ferdinand E. Marcos last year.

He watched as Catholic nuns and priests and Buddhist monks stood defiantly with student radicals, defying riot police and wave after wave of tear gas--images that recalled what occurred in Manila.

He recorded in detail the speeches of opposition politicians Kim Dae Jung and Kim Young Sam, who in calling for people power and nonviolent protest were borrowing liberally from the language of Corazon Aquino, who led the campaign against Marcos and succeeded him as president.

And he listened with admiration as Roh Tae Woo, head of the ruling party, caved in Monday to the opposition’s demands and announced a series of proposals for sweeping reform.

Sees Major Differences

Inevitably, what has happened here is being compared with what happened in the Philippines. But Padilla, a veteran of 30 years of diplomacy, an Asian expert with a master’s degree from Yale University, said Tuesday that “for me, there are more differences than similarities.”

“I would say it is a triumph of people power,” Padilla said in an interview. “The people (of South Korea) were able to clearly manifest what they wanted, and the government was smart enough to oblige. We have a political miracle here, in that the ruling party just accepted almost everything the opposition wanted, with almost no bloodshed.

“But, of course, it was all in a very different way. In the Philippines, people power overthrew a government, and, of course, the (South Korean) government is still in power.”

Many political analysts in Seoul, who were also observers of the Philippine rebellion in February of 1986, agreed that despite the many similarities here this month, there are only two elements shared by the two nations: the ability of the people to bring about basic change by taking their case to the streets, and the effect of quiet U.S. pressure for reform in countries where U.S. troops are stationed.

There is much that is different, and the most important of the differences lies with the armed forces.

“The military here is still basically behind President Chun (Doo Hwan),” Ambassador Padilla said, referring to the 600,000 South Koreans in uniform who kept to their barracks throughout the unrest.

In Manila, it was an uprising by 300 soldiers headed by Marcos’ defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, that led to Marcos’ fall.

Marcos had alienated much of the military by showing favoritism and by concentrating the armed forces in Manila to protect himself and his family. Moreover, in nine years of martial law, the Philippine military took key positions in virtually every sector of Philippine society and became a corrupt, lazy and undisciplined force.

Chun, a retired general who took power through a military coup in 1980, also imposed martial law, but it lasted less than a year.

“The basic difference is that the South Korean military remained neutral and stayed in the barracks during the entire affair,” Padilla said.

Church Was Key in Manila

The religious elements were also different. In the Philippines, Enrile and Gen. Fidel V. Ramos might have been captured or killed had it not been for Cardinal Jaime Sin, who called on the faithful to protect them. After Sin broadcast an appeal for people power, tens of thousands of Filipinos, among them priests, nuns and seminarians, formed a human barricade outside the military camp where the two rebel leaders had holed up.

On the surface at least, the Catholic Church in South Korea played a similar role. Increasingly, priests here have advocated political activism. Seoul’s principal Catholic church, the Myongdong Cathedral, was used as a haven for anti-government students.

And last Sunday morning, on the first day of calm after the worst tear-gassing this city has ever seen, the church’s national headquarters distributed hundreds of thousands of copies of a newsletter that said in part: “We looked with much shame at churches that contributed to the democracy in the Philippines. They looked so heroic and we looked so small.”

Actually, the church here had little to do with the ruling party’s startling change of attitude. For despite the high-profile role of Cardinal Stephen Kim, Catholics are a small minority here. There are only about 2 million of them, in a nation of more than 40 million.

Network of Parishes

In the Philippines, on the other hand, more than 85% of the 57 million people are Catholics; the church has a network of parishes that reaches into the smallest and most remote barrios.

“There is no question,” Padilla said, “that the church played a more effective and vital role in the Philippines. . . . Roman Catholics are such a minority here that they are less even than the Protestants.”

Another key difference is the economies of the two countries. South Korea’s is booming; the Philippine economy is, and was, in poor condition.

“President Chun has improved the economy of the South Korean nation,” Padilla said. “He can take credit for that, and, of course, the credit also belongs to the Korean people. Whereas in the Philippines, the economy was, and still is, in bad shape.

“As the quality of life improves, the South Koreans want to be more involved politically. But there’s a risk. They don’t want to push beyond the point where it will begin to hurt their economy. There’s too much at stake for them.”

Padilla and others see similarities in Washington’s role here and in Manila, but even in this respect they see more differences.

“In both cases, there was, of course, pressure from the U.S. government,” Padilla said. “And in both cases, I think, it was sufficient without being overpowering.”

But the pressure and influence were different in degree, he said. In the Philippines, pressure had been building on Marcos from the U.S. Congress, which withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and from the Reagan Administration, which sent one envoy after another to press Marcos for reform. Finally, the United States sent helicopters to take Marcos and his family out of Manila, and a U.S. plane flew them to Hawaii.

Congress recently adopted resolutions and proposed legislation that would hurt South Korea economically, and the Reagan Administration sent State Department officials to Seoul to urge reform, but the U.S. government never took an active role in South Korean politics.

The United States has a large military presence in both countries--40,000 troops in South Korea and 20,000 in the Philippines--but on this score, too, there is a fundamental difference.

“The threat here is much more tangible and real than any in the Philippines,” Padilla said. “True, there is a Communist insurgency in the Philippines, but here you have a Communist state with a larger army just the other side of the demilitarized zone. . . . Every South Korean is aware of that threat, and for many of them it is the bottom line.

“The people’s wishes were clearly manifested here in recent weeks, no question about that. But I think many of them believe that is quite enough for them right now.”