Aquino Aides Visit Marcos; Relations Seen Warming

Philippine President Corazon Aquino confirmed Monday that she sent two official emissaries to visit Ferdinand E. Marcos at his home-in-exile in Hawaii recently in what appears to be the first warming of relations between Aquino and the authoritarian ruler she helped overthrow two years ago.

However, Aquino has maintained that Marcos cannot come home until her country stabilizes and he repays the billions of dollars that her government claims he stole from the country while president. She made it clear that the time is still not right for her government to grant Marcos’ standing request to return to the Philippines.

“Not yet,” Aquino said flatly when reporters stopped her outside her office Monday morning to ask if she is ready to approve Marcos’ request.

In a press conference later, Aquino’s press secretary, Teodoro Benigno, said the two separate visits to Marcos’ Honolulu home by two of Aquino’s close relatives were, indeed, “the first official contact” between the government and the deposed leader since the popular revolt that overthrew Marcos in February, 1986.

“The initiative came from President Marcos,” Benigno said. He added that Marcos had requested through intermediaries in Manila that the meetings be held “specifically with trusted emissaries (of President Aquino).”

Benigno stopped short of saying that relations between the present and former leaders of the Philippines are improving. However, his tone, as well as that of the two emissaries, both of whom are members of the National Assembly, were indications that the Aquino government’s bitterness toward the man who ruled the nation with an iron fist for nearly two decades is beginning to fade.

“I am of the impression that Mr. Marcos wants to redeem, even if partially, the dishonor attached to his name, and, with his deteriorating health, we should study carefully his request to return,” said Aquino’s uncle, House Majority Leader Francisco Sumulong.

Sumulong, who said he met twice with Marcos on Feb. 4 and 5 at the latter’s posh residence in Honolulu, described the long-ailing 69-year-old exile’s health as “greatly deteriorated,” but he added that the former president is obviously still lucid.

“His mind is quite alert, but I could see that he may be counting his last living days,” Sumulong told reporters Monday.

Appeared Conciliatory

Aquino’s first cousin, Rep. Emigdio Tanjuatco Jr., told reporters that he met with Marcos for 90 minutes Jan. 26 at the home of a mutual friend in Honolulu because he did not want to go to the Marcos residence. Tanjuatco told the House of Representatives in a speech Monday that Marcos appeared conciliatory during the visit.

He said Marcos asked him to convey personally his request to come home and indicated a willingness to negotiate on the so-called hidden-wealth issue. But Tanjuatco added that he told Marcos there may be difficulty satisfying the many agencies and investigators involved in the government’s ongoing probe into the alleged corruption of Marcos’ rule.

Tanjuatco described the talks as “purely on an informal and exploratory basis,” and he said there is a “50-50 chance” that more negotiations will be held in the future.

Marcos himself sounded even more conciliatory in a statement from Hawaii read by his spokesman, Leonie Tan, on a Manila radio station Monday afternoon.

‘An Inspired Move’

Declaring that he is indeed ready to negotiate his return to Manila with the Aquino government, Marcos was quoted as saying that the recent visits by the Aquino emissaries were “an inspired move.”

“We are ready to appoint our representatives to negotiate the details and conditions under which my family and I shall return to the Philippines for the salvation of the country from the bloody takeover by Communist insurgents,” Marcos said.

Marcos, who was long considered a staunch fighter against the country’s protracted, 19-year Communist insurgency, refrained in his statement from his characteristically sarcastic recent references to Aquino as “Madame.” He also indicated for the first time that he is willing to recognize Aquino as the country’s legitimate president.

Reacting to the new diplomatic efforts by his government, Emmanuel Pelaez, the Philippine ambassador to the United States, told reporters that Marcos may well be permitted to come home in the future, but only if he meets two key conditions.

‘He Has to Come Clean’

“First, he must swear allegiance to this government, and second, he has to come clean and return the stolen wealth,” Pelaez said in an interview here.

“If he returns the stolen wealth, I think there are good chances for him to come home.”

Aquino has often blamed her nation’s debilitated national economy on massive plunder by Marcos and his so-called cronies.

A presidential commission that she created within a week of taking office two years ago has alleged that Marcos may well have stolen more than $10 billion from the national treasury, and its members have traveled to the United States, Switzerland and other Asian capitals in search of the hidden wealth.

In addition, Aquino’s military leaders have voiced concern in the past that Marcos’ return could help inspire dissidents within the armed forces, which remains divided two years after it staged the coup that triggered the revolt against Marcos.

Reacting today to the proposed return of the former dictator, several national legislators said they adamantly oppose it. But others seemed, for the first time, sympathetic.

“I don’t believe in the perpetual banishment of any person,” said Sen. Neptali Gonzales, a close Aquino confidante who once served as her justice minister.

And Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who, as Marcos’ disillusioned defense minister led the military revolt that overthrew him, said: “He is a Filipino, and he is entitled to come back.

“I do not believe the government is that brittle to be buffeted by instability because Marcos will come back.”