Aquino Asks Filipinos to Unite Behind Military : Seeks to Defuse Crisis Over Attempted Coup; No Mention Made of Cabinet

In a rambling and repetitive 45-minute nationally televised chat Thursday night, President Corazon Aquino appealed to the Philippine armed forces to support her government and called on the people to unite behind the military.

Aquino, apparently trying to defuse the political crisis following last month’s attempted coup, did not mention Wednesday’s mass resignation of her Cabinet. Nor did she say anything about the intense political infighting in her embattled government. And she barely mentioned the Aug. 28 coup that ripped apart the armed forces and nearly overthrew her government.

Instead, smiling and informal in a red dress and speaking without a text, Aquino repeatedly condemned the widening rift between civilians and the military. And she stressed her personal efforts to overcome a deep prejudice against the military, which she believes was responsible for imprisoning and later assassinating her husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., in 1983, three years before it staged the coup that brought her to power.

Aquino’s strategy in the address was well-calculated, according to several longtime Filipino political analysts.

Strikes Casual Pose

Facing the gravest political crisis in 18 months in office and with her military more factionalized than ever, Aquino struck a casual pose to reassure her troubled nation and personally appealed for the same populist support that backed her in her 1986 election bid to unseat former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

“I really need your help, especially in these times,” she said at the close of her rare television appearance, her first in several months. “There are still those who, until now, want to bring this administration down.

“If we have failed you in any way, my promise is that we will strive more to give you the government that we should give because you are the ones who gave us the power.”

But the president’s only mention of the Aug. 28 coup attempt that left at least 53 dead and hundreds wounded was an appeal to the Filipino people to thank the loyalist forces “who defended us” and to “remind those who were responsible for the Aug. 28 coup . . . that we cannot allow them to escape from the law.”

So far, coup leader Col. Gregorio (Gringo) Honasan has done just that. And there still is no indication that Aquino’s armed forces chief, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, and his loyalist forces have any idea where Honasan and his rebel forces are hiding.

Revolt Leader’s Propaganda

The renegade colonel, an expert in psychological warfare, has used audiotapes and printed manifestoes in a propaganda campaign to turn many key officers against Ramos and Aquino in the two weeks since he escaped Ramos’ artillery barrage and air strike on rebel-held positions in Manila.

Aquino’s chatty address apparently was meant to counteract Honasan’s campaign. Over and over, she aimed her appeal at the 155,000-member Philippine armed forces, which want sweeping military reforms, increased pay and benefits and a harder government line against the Communist insurgents.

Flanked by her press spokesman, Teodoro Benigno, and her Cabinet secretary, Jose de Jesus, Aquino told the nation, “I visited V. Luna (Military Hospital)--you were there, Teddy--and I saw the soldiers who were shot and wounded by the Communists. Their wounds are grave.

“So we should not forget these soldiers. They are also waiting that I--not only me, but really more important, you--you should all tell them that you really appreciate what they are doing for our country. . . . Invite them into your homes.”

Soldiers Were Poisoned

Aquino did not mention the incident last weekend in which a village on the war-torn southern island of Mindanao did offer water to 225 soldiers who were jogging past on a “fun run.” The water turned out to be laced with rat poison. It killed at least 25 of the troops, and more than 100 are still hospitalized.

Military authorities on the island offered a $500 reward Thursday for information leading to the capture of those who poisoned the soldiers.

But Aquino did relate a personal experience that she said illustrates how the Filipino people should forgive the armed forces for past abuses and corruption and join them in the struggle to save her government from the left and ultra-right.

She said that the female soldier who had been assigned to frisk her during the seven years that Aquino was forced to visit her husband in a military stockade is now one of her personal bodyguards.

“We could be more unified,” the president said. “What is past is past. What is more important is (that) one must understand what our duties are today.”

Aquino took no action Thursday on the resignations of her 24 Cabinet members and several other top government officials. The courtesy resignations were submitted en masse after a brief Cabinet meeting Wednesday.

Will Make Announcement

Aquino told reporters who shouted questions to her as she walked to the meeting that she will make an announcement on the pending Cabinet changes “in a matter of a few days--probably during the weekend.”

Rejecting calls from her armed forces chief that she convene the National Security Council to help solve the crisis, Aquino formed yet another body Thursday called the Council of State. The memberships of the two councils are similar, with the major exception that the crisis committee formed Thursday does not include Aquino’s old foe, Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, who led the February, 1986, coup that installed Aquino as president.

Gen. Ramos, who is a member of the Council of State, said Thursday that he, too, has offered to resign from his post, a principal demand of the mutinous officers who staged the Aug. 28 coup attempt, but that he made the offer “a long time ago.”