Death, Domesticity Mix in ‘Laurel Vs. Hardy’ War

The altar was makeshift: flickering candles on a wooden barricade bearing the warning “War Zone, Do Not Enter.”

But the dozens of people gathered there Monday night seemed not to mind. They linked arms, closed their eyes and prayed as machine-gun fire echoed down the street.

“It’s a prayer for peace,” Rosario Saab, 25, an architecture student, said, “praying that it will be over soon.”

But peace seemed far away in Makati, Manila’s financial and commercial district. It was a deserted no-man’s-land, where rebel snipers fired on anything that moved, skirmished with soldiers and turned high-rise apartment buildings into towers of terror.

“My windows are shot out,” a Philippine travel agent who lives in a fourth-floor apartment told a caller through her tears. “I put the mattress up. . . . Snipers are all around me.”

Still, it was Philippine-style war. Another resident said that after a brutal firefight Monday morning, three rebels put down their weapons and began sweeping up trash discarded by the troops in front of the Twin Towers condominiums.

A frustrated foreign resident who has watched the fighting said he has not been impressed with either side’s ability.

“The armed forces versus the rebels,” he said, “is like Laurel versus Hardy.”

A Makati businessman, pinned down with his wife in their 11th-floor apartment since Saturday, said rebels who held his building spent the afternoon relaxing and reading newspapers in lounge chairs by the pool.

He said one came up, knocked on the kitchen door and politely asked if he could watch TV. The maid said no, and the rebel left. Somewhat anxious, the businessman quickly called downstairs and offered a rebel officer TV and food.

“He said they’re eating great meals, getting it catered from the hotels they’ve occupied,” the businessman said. “And he said he didn’t think his men should watch TV because the media reports are all false. They’ve been absolute gentlemen.”

A foreign resident told a similar story: “They’ve been very polite. If they ask for food and you say no, they say OK and try next door.”

The fighting is seen as a spectator sport by many Manila youths--some of whom died in the cross-fire. Crowds have repeatedly gone into areas where fighting was in progress, watching and sometimes cheering, then cowering as the shooting moved their way. Boys selling cigarettes ran from one barricade to the next, hawking their wares.

Hospitals report that as many as half the casualties so far are civilians. At least 70 people have been reported killed and 500 wounded.

On Ayala Avenue, scores of spectators stood on five fire engines that had been drawn up as a barricade. When mortars began thumping down the street, everyone ran. Half an hour later, the crowds were back around the smoking, shell-scarred trucks.

For a third straight day, heavy shooting erupted at sunrise today near the Hotel Inter-Continental, which apparently has become rebel headquarters. Government troops have used the Manila Mandarin Hotel, about half a mile away.

Rebels continued to hold the Twin Towers and Ritz Towers condominium complexes, the Hotel Nikko Manila Garden, the Landmark Supermart, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone offices, the Philippine Commercial International Bank building and several other office and apartment complexes.