Manila Still Wary of Marcos Return : Dead or Alive, Ex-Chief Could Cause Problems for Aquino

Gone from the Philippines for nearly three years, Ferdinand E. Marcos still casts a shadow that touches both president and peasant.

Manila’s master of politics and intrigue for a generation, the ailing Marcos, confined for the third time in two months to a Honolulu hospital, is watched as warily as when he presided in Malacanang Palace.

“I suppose that . . . the racketeering charge (brought against Marcos in a New York federal court) would make an ordinary, normal person sick,” mused a suspicious Senate President Jovito R. Salonga. “But there is no doubt in my mind also that the former president is trying to avoid having to go through the rigors of a trial.”

Distrust fills the Cabinet of President Corazon Aquino. When Marcos suffered a collapsed lung 10 days ago, Aquino’s ministers met in crisis session to discuss whether, even dead, Marcos should be allowed to return to his homeland.

“Marcos was an elemental personality,” noted his former labor minister, Blas Ople, adding wryly, “Cory (Aquino) would want to be reassured that he is really dead.”

More and more, the coffee-shop comments about Marcos end in brief eulogies.

Teodoro Locsin Jr., Aquino’s former speech writer, remarking on the fixation on hospital reports from Honolulu, concluded: “Whether we were his enemies or his cronies, Marcos helped shape the lives of all of us. When he dies, a part of everyone dies along with him.”

For Juan Ponce Enrile, who had been Marcos’ martial-law administrator and then turned against him in a military mutiny that brought Aquino to power in February, 1986, the response was not speculative.

The waitress in a restaurant had just taken his order when a call came for him. It was important, an aide said, and Enrile rushed off. When he returned to the table moments later, Enrile was shaken. His voice cracked as he related the news, which turned out to be premature.

“President Marcos is dead,” Enrile said flatly. “My God!” His eyes mirroring his mood, he murmured, “It is sad that he had to die in a foreign land.”

The Official Position

Officially, the Aquino government’s position is that for “reasons of national interest” Marcos will not be allowed to return to the Philippines, at least not yet.

Salonga, the first chairman of the president’s Commission on Good Government, who doggedly put together the Philippine case against Marcos for theft of government funds, takes a slightly more open view.

“If Marcos decides to do a Chun Doo Hwan (the former South Korean president), that is, make a public apology, seek our people’s forgiveness and restore his ill-gotten wealth,” he might be allowed to return, Salonga said recently. “There will be enough time for the former president and his lawyers to initiate a plea-bargaining process . . . with the New York courts and prosecutors . . . authorities in Washington and the government of the Philippines.”

Aquino Has Four Options

As the politicians read it, the Aquino government is faced with four options, none without problems: Marcos could be permitted to return to the Philippines to live out his days; he could be allowed to return briefly to preside over the funeral of his mother, who, in what a priest of her province called “the longest wake in history,” remains unburied more than eight months after her death; he could be allowed to die in exile, then be returned for his own burial; or he could never be allowed to return, dead or alive.

Legalistic- and protocol-minded Filipinos have been poring over foreign historical precedents for all the options, since the Philippines has never faced a situation like this.

The concentration centers on political options, since many politicians here believe the former president’s legal problems could somehow be worked out, based in part on unconfirmed reports from Honolulu that Marcos’ lawyers are floating various schemes to do just that. One report making the rounds in Manila says that Marcos has signed or will sign quitclaims to the accumulated money, turning over ownership to an international trust to be based in Britain. What the trust would do for Marcos is unclear.

Consent Decree Suggested

“With regard to the money,” Ople said, raising another option, “perhaps there could be something like what you Americans call a consent decree, a return of the funds with no admission of guilt.”

But many politicians here, speculating widely since Marcos’ lung collapsed, say the political considerations are more important in the consultations at Malacanang. Defense Minister Fidel V. Ramos is reported to be the voice of caution in the Cabinet on the question of letting Marcos return alive.

Ramos, who harbors presidential ambitions himself, is in a difficult postion. He not only joined Enrile in the 1986 mutiny that overthrew Marcos, he also is the former president’s second cousin. In Laoag City, the capital of Marcos’ native Ilocos del Norte province, provincial leaders said last week that the Ilocano people will never forgive Ramos.

‘No Loyalists Here’

The provincial governor, Rudolfo Farinas, who was a close friend and political ally of Marcos’ son, said he would anticipate no trouble in the Ilocano region if the ousted president were allowed to return to his political stronghold in the north. “He’s had his time,” insisted Farinas, discounting speculation that pro-Marcos loyalists might rally around their 71-year-old leader and pose a threat to Aquino’s government. “There are no loyalists here,” he said. “The people here love him, but the loyalists are in Manila.”

Castor Raval, a Laoag lawyer who for 20 years carried on a long and lonely opposition to Marcos in Ilocos del Norte, agrees. “He has no more political clout,” the lawyer said. “Even the former beneficiaries of his bounty are now working with the Aquino government.”

But if Marcos comes back to Laoag in a coffin, Farinas and other Ilocanos say, there could be serious trouble. “There are always rabble-rousers who will make it an issue,” the governor noted. Tempers could run high at the burial. As Ople said, in a remark he attributed to Enrile, “If Ramos goes, the Ilocanos might bury him alongside Marcos.” And under Ilocano custom, Ramos, as a second cousin, would be expected to attend Marcos’ funeral.

Opposes Death in Exile

Gov. Farinas said he personally believes death in exile for Marcos “would be inhumane.” But many Ilocanos consider equally inhumane Marcos’ refusal to permit the burial of his mother.

The old woman, who died last May 4 at age 95, lies in a glass-topped coffin in a former Marcos family home in the town of Batac outside Laoag. Last week, hundreds of schoolchildren, bused in from the nearby towns of Marcos (named for the former president’s father) and Espiritu, filed by the casket, momentarily somber on a school outing.

In a chair against a wall, dressed in black, sat Fortuna Barba, Marcos’ 57-year-old sister, keeping vigil as she has since her mother died. “It’s the Ilocano custom that the head of the family should bury our dead,” she told a visiting reporter. So far Marcos, the head of his family, has not given permission for Barba to violate the code of the north and bury their mother in his absence.

In Manila, Marcos’ enemies say the former president is playing a cruel political game with the body of Dona Josefa, trying to force Aquino to approve his return for the burial. But Barba remains loyal, despite the ordeal of her eight-month vigil. “We don’t see it that way,” she said.