New Doubts Emerge on Aquino Rule : Erosion of Support Among Philippine Middle Class Seen

In Makati, a Manila business district that has been the bedrock of popular support for President Corazon Aquino, the hottest item was a T-shirt bearing the words: “I voted for Cory. Now I’m sorry.”

At the Makati Stock Exchange, where last month’s attempted coup against Aquino had fueled a bullish period (“you always buy low when there’s blood on the streets,” one broker said), there were long lunches and long faces as the price of shares began to plummet.

And throughout the city, in bars and five-and-dime sari-sari shops over the weekend, almost everyone was asking, “Will Cory Aquino survive?”

“There is no question that the situation right now is extremely serious,” said William Esposo, a political analyst who formed part of a group of advisers who helped bring Aquino to power last year.

“This is the biggest challenge of her 18 months in office, and the most dangerous sign right now is the middle and upper classes getting disappointed. That’s her base--her bedrock--and they’re starting to lose faith in her. She’s got to work to win them back. She’s got to immediately begin a process of purification. Very simply, the president must begin to govern.”

Saturday night’s slaying of prominent leftist leader Leandro Alejandro served to deepen Aquino’s crisis. Alejandro was the second influential leftist slain in the last year. Communist guerrillas have responded by killing officials, among them Jaime Ferrer, a member of Aquino’s Cabinet who was slain last month, and stepping up attacks on military units.

Alejandro’s slaying, blamed by most Filipino analysts on ultra-rightist factions either in or out of the military, indicated to most Filipinos that Aquino is increasingly powerless to deter violence, weakening her popular image even more.

Light Turnout at Rally

On Sunday, fewer than 5,000 Manilans responded to a call from the president’s moderate political coalition to assemble for a “peace rally” under a large yellow banner declaring “Support Civilian Supremacy.” The rally was held on the boulevard outside the two military camps where hundreds of thousands of Filipinos backed Aquino during the revolt that drove Ferdinand E. Marcos from power.

Aquino--now keenly aware that she faces her gravest threat since taking office in February, 1986--did try to act decisively last week, her critics said, perhaps for the first time. She removed three controversial aides from her Cabinet, among them her irascible and unpopular executive secretary, Joker Arroyo, whom many Filipinos called “the little president” because of his vast power and his great influence over Aquino.

“He was her crutch,” said Speaker of the House Ramon Mitra, a strong Aquino supporter who is emerging as one of the nation’s most influential moderate forces. “She proved she can fire people close to her.”

But now, according to Mitra and other political leaders, Aquino must prove that she can stand on her own, despite the chaos.

Never before has distrust been so high between the civilian government and the armed forces. Never before have so many been affected by the battered economy. And never before have the Philippine people been so worried that a wrong move could deliver their democratic government into the hands of the armed forces or the Communist insurgents.

The ultimate irony, according to senior government officials, military experts and business and Roman Catholic Church leaders interviewed during the present crisis, is that at a time when three opposition forces have created shadow governments, there has been virtually no government in Manila.

According to both critics and supporters of the president, Aquino and her advisers--preoccupied with military uprisings on the right and insurgents on the left who have gained a foothold in 68 of the country’s 73 provinces--have failed to provide basic government to the nation’s 58 million largely impoverished people.

“President Aquino has spent so much of her time balancing herself against the forces of the left and the right that her tendency has been to stay all the time in dead center, where nothing happens,” said Blas Ople, an opposition political leader who for 18 years was minister of labor under Marcos.

“What we have is a chronic stalemate, and as a result you have only two highly organized power centers in the country--the armed forces of the Philippines and the Communist Party of the Philippines, along with its military wing, the New People’s Army,” Ople continued.

“So what we are seeing now is a symptom of the internal breakdown and deterioration of the Aquino government as a buffer between these two far more powerful forces. We believe the process is irreversible--barring, of course, future miracles.”

The signs of government paralysis are evident nationwide, and political and business leaders blame it on the people Aquino has chosen to advise her.

Much of the criticism has been expressed directly in dozens of private meetings at the presidential palace since it came under attack by rebel forces Aug. 28.

Awakens to Realities

“It was almost as if the hundreds of bullets fired at Cory’s house woke her up to the realities we have all known about for years,” said a Catholic bishop who is close to the president and asked not to be identified by name.

By Aquino’s own account to the nation, the sound of automatic weapons fire outside her bedroom awakened her that night, and a key presidential aide said that fear “shocked Cory into realizing that this may indeed be the last chance for her government to survive.”

Immediately, she called in the nation’s most prominent leaders for consultation. She was told the depth of the government’s paralysis, the extent of the military’s mistrust and the breadth of the people’s discontent.

In many of the meetings, a Cabinet aide recalled, “we found ourselves sounding more like Col. (Gregorio) Honasan,” the leader of the Aug. 28 coup. Honasan has said publicly that he acted in an effort to force Aquino to realize “it is time to stop being a housewife . . . and to start focusing on good government.”

House Speaker Mitra said he told Aquino that “if democracy is to survive in this country, if Cory Aquino is to survive, she has got to move, and move fast.”

Mitra said that at one meeting, he and others “chewed the ears off” Aquino’s secretary of labor, Franklin Drilon, who has been unable to end a rash of strikes by leftist labor unions--strikes that have frightened off needed foreign investment and begun to cause serious shortages.

He said that at one point he shouted at Drilon: “You have return-to-work orders and you don’t implement them. What kind of government is that? We (the House) will cut your budget if you don’t implement the law, and you can tell that to your (radical labor) friends.”

“Imagine,” Mitra said to a reporter, “40% of the return-to-work orders issued to stop strikes are not being enforced at all.”

Lack of Funds Cited

Drilon told a press conference the following day that his department had no personnel or funds with which to implement the orders.

Mitra and other congressional leaders were sharply critical, too, of Aquino’s secretary of natural resources, Fulgencio Factoran, who is believed by many military men and political rightists to be a Communist sympathizer.

Factoran’s predecessor in the post, Sen. Ernesto Maceda, said last week in an interview that Factoran has deliberately frozen logging permits, an important source of government revenue.

“So what is happening,” Maceda said, “is that logging firms are going ahead and cutting down the trees illegally, without permits, and paying the New People’s Army for protection. What we’re talking about is 2 billion pesos a year ($100 million) in lost revenue that is now going to the Communists.”

Perhaps the most vital government department, in terms of fighting the insurgency, is the Department of Local Governments. The armed forces chief, Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, said the other day that the rebels now exercise considerable control in 20% of the country’s 41,000 villages.

Aquino decided last month to replace Ferrer, the slain secretary of local governments, with his brother, Juanito Ferrer. And in the month that Juanito Ferrer has run the department, which oversees all 1,600 mayors and 73 governors appointed by Aquino pending elections, several respected officials have resigned.

Political analyst Esposo, who had been serving as the undersecretary of the department, said in an interview that he quit Wednesday because “the management team now in place will not help the president or the country.”

In his first act as the new department head, Juanito Ferrer withdrew the department’s private jet and Mercedes-Benz limousine from the auction block, where his brother had placed them as an austerity measure.

“This,” Esposo said, “is an outright betrayal of the things this government should stand for--austerity and honesty. And graft and corruption are already beginning to rear their ugly heads in the department again.”

For Esposo, the crisis “is a good thing if it gets things going again.” He said: “I just hope they (Aquino and her advisers) have the time to implement the things they are starting to talk about now.”

Few Changes Expected

But these three controversial Cabinet secretaries--Drilon, Ferrer and Factoran--were not among the people Aquino dismissed last week. Her closest aides said that the only further change she has in mind for the near future is replacing the Central Bank governor and the economic planning secretary.

“The president has said many times that she doesn’t like unsolicited advice,” Mitra said. “She doesn’t like us telling her these things, so the thing is, you don’t know if she is listening.

“But those of us who like her and think highly of her do it anyway. The truth is that the people still love Cory, but the need for her to act is urgent. She doesn’t have much time. And really, our biggest problem is the military. It’s like a monster, and it’s out running loose.”

For the first time, the dimensions of Aquino’s problem with the armed forces were scientifically measured last week--by a prominent sociologist, Prof. Felipe Miranda, who conducted a survey of 452 military officers. His report, “Military Perceptions in a Time of Continuing Crisis,” was presented to the president and to an influential group of bishops and businessmen.

The most startling of its findings: More than 70% of the officers said they believed that officials of the civilian government doubt their loyalty; 50% said they believed that there are Communists or Communist sympathizers in the government; 43% said it would be proper for the military to overthrow the government if it were threatened by Communist takeover; 76% blamed incompetence and corruption in local government, not military abuses, for the growth of the Communist insurgency, and 75% said the armed services are seriously demoralized.

In a “trust ranking” of the nation’s political leaders, the officers gave Gen. Ramos the highest marks--76% said they trusted him. Aquino was given a 69% rating, and, surprisingly in a Roman Catholic nation, only 29% of the officers said they trusted Cardinal Jaime Sin, the nation’s Catholic primate.

Isolated Military

In a similar ranking of institutions, only two of the five most-trusted institutions listed by the officers are not military--the Supreme Court and the universities.

“What all this means is that the military trusts only themselves,” Miranda said. “You have an isolated military that would not like to be taken for granted any longer, and a military that is likely to do something about it.”

As a result of all this, most Filipinos now seem to be asking not if but when the rebel troops of Col. Honasan--who is still in hiding--will make another attempt against the Aquino government.

Gen. Ramos spent 75 minutes on national television Thursday urging the people to support the military. He said his efforts are now focused on “consolidating our ranks in the armed forces . . . to effectively fight our biggest enemy, which is the Communists,” and added:

“Just as important, if not more so, is the recognition by our people and our government of the soldier who has remained loyal to this government. This must be given as soon as possible . . . if we are to solve these problems.”