Secretive Exile Suspected in Failed Move to Oust Aquino : Philippines: Billionaire ‘Danding’ presides over a vast empire. Mysteriously, he was allowed to return to his homeland just before the coup attempt.

He was one of the richest men in Asia, a billionaire who ruled over vast industries and coconut plantations, championship horse farms and even his own private army.

He was also a former provincial governor in the Philippines and a political confidant of the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, sharing the same military plane as they fled a popular revolt that toppled the Marcos government in 1986.

But for the last four years, Eduardo Murphy Cojuangco Jr. has quietly lived in exile in Southern California, shuttling among relatives and his two-story red brick house in Santa Monica.

Known by his nickname “Danding,” Cojuangco has been considered an influential yet secretive presence in the Filipino-American community, an expatriate stripped of his passport and barred from returning home by his own first cousin--Philippine President Corazon Aquino.

Today, however, the 54-year-old Cojuangco is back in his native country, suspected of being a key supporter of the failed military coup that nearly overthrew Aquino three weeks ago.

The six-day uprising was the sixth and bloodiest coup attempt against Aquino and left at least 113 people dead and about 600 others injured.

Afterward, an angry Aquino linked Cojuangco, Philippine Vice President Salvador Laurel, who had broken with her administration, and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, her former defense minister, to the insurrection.

Laurel and Enrile have denied any involvement in the coup attempt. Cojuangco (Koh-HWONG-koh) has not commented publicly, but his supporters scoff at the allegations that he used his wealth and influence to assist the rebel soldiers.

The Aquino government, meanwhile, has temporarily closed a radio station in the southern Philippines believed to be owned by Cojuangco.

At the same time, the Aquino administration has removed a half-dozen government officials from their posts, including the Philippine consul general in Los Angeles who helped issue a passport to Cojuangco last month. The passport enabled him to enter the country less than a week before rebellious soldiers launched their attack.

“It will be hard to prove, but one can reasonably conclude that (Cojuangco) had a hand in this coup,” said Ted Laguatan, a San Francisco attorney who represents the Philippine Commission on Good Government, the presidential panel that is investigating charges that Marcos and his close companions had illegally amassed their wealth and looted the country.

“This was a well-financed, well-planned coup, and Danding Cojuangco wouldn’t have returned to the Philippines so confident unless he felt he was protected,” Laguatan said.

For his part, Cojuangco has remained silent except to deny the fraud charges he now faces.

“He is at his home in Manila and he is concentrating solely on defending himself in the Philippine courts,” said John Chwat, a Cojuangco spokesman in Washington. “His attorneys in Manila have advised him not to make any statements at all.”

Chwat’s partner, Robert Weigend, who returned Wednesday from the Philippines after spending several weeks with Cojuangco, said the Aquino government was tying the businessman to the coup attempt because it feared his political clout. Blaming him for the coup attempt is “an act of vengeance just to keep him out of politics in the future,” Weigend said.

Cojuangco has not been formally charged with any crime stemming from the rebellion, although government sources say that an investigation is continuing. Nevertheless, he currently faces two civil complaints and one criminal charge in the Philippines related to his vast holdings.

One civil case involves Cojuangco’s dealings in the coconut industry and claims that he used several million dollars of taxes collected from coconut farmers to build his private business. The others stem from allegations that he was fronting for Marcos when he acquired stock in the Philippines’ largest daily newspaper.

As he prepares for his legal battles, Cojuangco’s passport has been revoked, and his family in Los Angeles has been barred from traveling to the Philippines.

Still, his supporters dispute allegations that he was involved in the attempt to remove Aquino.

“From my point of view and what I know of the man, he had nothing to do with the coup,” said Gittel Gordon, an immigration attorney from Marina del Rey who said she represents members of the Cojuangco family.

“He’s a man of the Philippines, and he wanted to go back to his country,” she added. “His major interest in life was simply to go home.”

For Cojuangco, going home meant returning to a country that he had departed aboard an American military jet with Marcos. Forced to escape in the wake of Aquino’s “people power” revolution, the two men, along with family members and other close friends of Marcos, flew into exile. Marcos took up residence in Hawaii while Cojuangco came to California.

What Cojuangco left behind was a financial empire that included controlling interest in the San Miguel Corp., one of the nation’s largest companies that included lucrative food and beverage franchises.

With the support of Marcos, Cojuangco also dominated the country’s vital coconut market with its copra mills, plantations and worldwide market. He had a major stake in a national bank and invested in radio stations, real estate and cement plants.

His far-flung holdings included grazing land and a reported $25-million cattle ranch and horse farm in Australia, and he built a reputation for breeding fighting roosters and thoroughbred horses that won stakes races in the Philippines, Ireland and the United States.

His legend also grew after it was widely reported that Cojuangco had his own island off the Philippine coast and recruited a 2,000-man private army to protect his estates--a report that Weigend said was untrue. He contended that Cojuangco used the island for a large coconut farm and relied on a small contingent of security guards just as other landowners did.

According to Laguatan of the Presidential Commission on Good Government that is investigating Marcos and his associates, half of the “hidden wealth” cases now under scrutiny involve securities, stocks, real estate and other properties or holdings controlled by Cojuangco--a slice he valued at 20 billion pesos or about $1 billion.

Much of Cojuangco’s Philippine holdings have been “sequestered” by the Aquino government, he said, as investigators try to unravel the source of those assets and contest the ownership of the properties.

“He’s the top of the heap, the top dog,” Laguatan said. “Of all the Marcos cronies, he’s the toppest dog.”

Danny Lamila, a pro-Aquino activist in Los Angeles, put it more bluntly: “He is Donald Trump and the Mafia (don) combined into one.”

Lamila said he was stunned when he learned that Cojuangco had been issued a passport to leave the United States.

“You don’t give a passport to these people that can create unrest,” Lamila said. “Marcos was denied a passport, and giving Danding a passport is like giving Marcos travel papers to go home.”

According to government officials, the Aquino administration canceled the passports of Cojuangco and his family after they fled the country in 1986, and the family was placed on a “watch list” with other close Marcos supporters who were barred from returning home without special permission.

Since 1987, Cojuangco had attempted several times to obtain a passport, only to be ignored or rejected by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs.

Cojuangco, however, obtained a valid passport in October from the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles. How he accomplished it is a source of controversy, both here and in Manila.

In a telephone interview from Manila, Jorge Lorredo, an assistant secretary in the foreign affairs department, said that after Marcos’ death last September, “a reminder” was sent to all Philippine consulates abroad notifying them not to issue Cojuangco and others on the watch list passports without alerting top Philippine officials.

The Aquino government contends that the businessman was quietly issued the travel papers after an official in the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs sent a telex to the consulate stating that Cojuangco was now free to enter the country.

Deputy Consul General Willy Gaa in Los Angeles said he was initially surprised by the decision, which occurred while Aquino’s foreign secretary was out of the Philippines. But Gaa said he believed the matter had been handled properly.

“There was no secrecy at all about that,” he said. “My thinking was that there was a reconciliation (between Cojuangco and Aquino). Maybe they had settled it and that was good for the country.”

As it turned out, no such agreement had been reached at Malacanang Palace, Aquino’s official residence. In fact, neither Aquino nor her foreign secretary was told that a passport had been issued to Cojuangco until he arrived in Manila.

Asked if Marcos loyalists in the foreign affairs department had assisted Cojuangco in obtaining the passport, Gaa replied: “I don’t have any idea. There is an ongoing investigation.”

Gaa’s boss in Los Angeles--Consul General Leonides Caday--was removed from his post and five other officials were reassigned after the inquiry, consulate officials said.

“It was a disastrous mistake,” said a government official, who asked not to be identified. “Danding is an alligator, a sworn enemy of Cory Aquino, and we let him go back.”

Whether there was a bureaucratic snafu or something more sinister, Cojuangco’s supporters insist that he never should have been banned from his homeland in the first place.

“Whoever did the mistake of issuing a passport, did right,” said Cely Carbonell of Vallejo, a leader of the Concerned Citizens for Freedom Movement, a Northern California group comprised largely of Marcos loyalists.

“If he is a citizen of the Philippines, why can’t he go back? It is the duty of the Philippine consulate to issue him a passport. To deprive him of that right is a violation of human rights,” she added.

For many Marcos loyalists, Danding Cojuangco is the logical successor to the late president whose iron-fisted rule in the Philippines spanned more than two decades--much of it under martial law.

And in a Filipino-American community--estimated at 2 million nationwide and 350,000 in Los Angeles County--the debate between Marcos sympathizers and Aquino supporters has intensified since the coup attempt.

Marcos’ widow, Imelda, recently surfaced at a San Jose restaurant to celebrate with supporters. His only son, Ferdinand Jr., popularly known by his nickname “Bongbong,” has been traveling the country meeting with Filipino-American organizations and speaking out against the Aquino administration. And his daughter and son-in-law, Irene and Gregorio Araneta III, who reside in Northern California, remain influential among the expatriates.

But it is Cojuangco who is considered by many to be the political heir apparent to the Marcos legacy.

“He has the billions and he has the intelligence to put together a major operation,” said Rodel E. Rodis, a Filipino activist and member of San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission. “Among the cronies of Marcos, he is perhaps the most politically astute and organized, and he’s able to inspire a large number of people.”

Alex A. Esclamado, editor and publisher of the Philippine News, the largest and oldest of the Filipino-American community newspapers, said that ever since Marcos’ death, Cojuangco has attracted many of his longtime supporters.

“Our consensus now is that Marcos loyalists are shifting their bets to Danding,” Esclamado said. “If there is any possibility of success in toppling Aquino, Danding would be their bet.”

Cojuangco’s refusal to comment on the latest coup attempt does not surprise some of his associates. They describe him as a shy, secretive man who spent most of his time in exile doting on his grandchildren, frequenting local race tracks, going to the movies to watch the latest in adventure films and greeting a flow of visitors from his native country.

“He’s a very, very private person,” said Bradley M. (Mike) Shannon, a Kentucky racehorse owner who has known Cojuangco for more than a decade. “He’s not out here waving red flags to attract attention. When I first met him, I never would have believed that he was a world-class industrialist and businessman. He was very congenial, just a stand-up, one-of-the-guys kind of man.”

It was Shannon who bought a champion thoroughbred named Manila from Cojuangco shortly after the industrialist arrived in Hawaii.

“He had to sell Manila,” Shannon said. “He didn’t have any liquid assets when he left the Philippines. The only asset he could sell was his horse which was on my farm.”

Cojuangco, who grew up studying agriculture and genetics, has since made regular trips to the Bluegrass country to inspect horses, Shannon said.

Supporters said he has been able to sustain a comfortable life style even without income from his many businesses, relying instead on financial help from family members.

“And he would rely on his friends,” said a close associate, who asked not to be identified. “He would call in his chits.”

Many of those friends remain intensely loyal to him just as Cojuangco stood by Marcos during their years together.

His friendship and political ties with Marcos dated back to the mid-1960s and when his cousin, Cory Aquino, challenged Marcos two decades later, Cojuangco opposed her. By then, there was already a reported rift between the cousins.

The political rivalry extended back to Cojuangco’s first congressional campaign, when he was defeated by Aquino’s brother in their native province of Tarlac. But two years later, Cojuangco would win his own election as provincial governor.

Like his cousin, Cojuangco’s paternal heritage can be traced to southern China, but his middle name--Murphy--comes from his mother’s American ancestry. Cojuangco also attended Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and his close ties to the United States led some Philippine media to dub him the “Americano.”

With Cojuangco now back in Manila, his wife, Gretchen, and six other family members--including two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren--have had their own passports revoked and remain in Southern California unable to join him. And it’s unclear how long the separation will last.

In his only public statement since returning to Manila, Cojuangco said it has been “almost four long years” since he left and that he intends to vindicate himself.

“Let me make clear that I have not stolen or taken any property from government or anybody else in violation of law, in breach of any moral rule, or to the damage of our country and people,” he said.

“Whatever I and my family own, we have acquired legally and without impropriety. I am confident that the frivolity and baselessness of the charges and suits against me will in due time be exposed.”