A Reformer? Or Another Marcos? : Philippines’ new president has a lot to prove

Fidel V. Ramos, taking office as the eighth president of the Philippines since it became independent of the United States in 1946, has assured his 66 million fellow citizens that he plans to improve basic services, restore law and order and dedicate himself to “empowering” the people.

Filipinos no doubt found the words familiar; Ramos’ predecessors made similar promises. In the Philippines, sadly, performance has seldom matched presidential vows.

Recent decades have seen most of East Asia’s non-communist states prosper mightily. The Philippines remains an exception. Does Ramos have ideas for arresting his country’s slide into ever-deeper poverty and misery? He prescribes, accurately, swift and decisive political and economic reforms. Now he must find a way to match deeds to words.

Ramos begins with considerably less than a compelling mandate. He won the presidency--in a field of seven--with fewer than 24% of the vote. A Protestant in an overwhelmingly Catholic country, he was opposed by high church leaders, who regard him with suspicion.

Ramos succeeds the ineffective Corazon Aquino, whom he served as defense minister and whom he helped bring to power in 1986 after the late President Ferdinand Marcos tried to steal yet another election. But before that Ramos was a Marcos loyalist, for 16 years chief of the corrupt Philippine Constabulary, which implemented Marcos’ harsh martial law decrees.

A second cousin to Marcos, Ramos--like Aquino--is very much a part of the small governing elite in a country whose social structure is not far removed from feudalism.

Even with the best of intentions Ramos could well find his reformist inclinations frustrated by a notoriously fac- tion-ridden political system and by the continuing armed threat posed by communist guerrillas and Muslim separatists, as well as by renegade military forces.

He inherits--as did Aquino--a stagnant economy, systemic corruption, a huge foreign debt. Complicating matters is the big reduction in U.S. economic and military aid that followed the termination of military base leases in the wake of rising anti-Americanism.

The West Point-educated Ramos has a lot of American friends, and the immigrant-fed Filipino community in the United States--second-largest among ethnic Asians, after the Chinese--helps reinforce long ties of sentiment. But the bilateral relationship undoubtedly stands in need of repair. A Ramos presidency that begins to achieve true economic and political reforms would find plenty of enthusiasts in Washington.