Aquino Asks Gulf War Emergency Power : Philippines: She wants authority to deal with possible civil unrest if conflict erupts.

President Corazon Aquino has asked the Philippine Congress for emergency powers to cope with possible civil unrest in case of a Persian Gulf war, government officials said Wednesday.

Aquino’s executive secretary, Oscar Orbos, told reporters after a meeting with leaders of Congress that they are considering approving emergency powers before the Jan. 15 U.N. deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

Orbos said emergency powers would cover areas such as law and order and regulating supply of essential commodities such as food and gasoline.

Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos said war in the gulf would have a major impact on all developing countries, particularly those like the Philippines that import all their oil.

He told a news conference that if war breaks out, the government might have to contend with domestic unrest as extremist groups on the right and left try to exploit an inevitable rise in prices and shortages of certain commodities.

Ramos said it could also trigger a foreign exchange shortage.

“So the main concern that we have to contend with and prepare for would be civil unrest which might be exploited by the usual threat groups coming from the extreme left and the extreme right,” Ramos said.

Asked what he saw as the worst possible scenario for a gulf war, Ramos said that “what might happen is a shooting war which is not decided one way or the other immediately, and which will therefore produce a stand-off and even protracted warfare.”

“The stand-off might also result in some kind of guerrilla warfare on a global scale by the protagonists, and this may have some effect on us here,” he said.