Return of The Viper

As observers had feared (TIME, Jan. 12), 73-year-old Generalissimo Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy has indeed become "a sort of Philippine quisling." That was how Douglas MacArthur's defiant headquarters on Bataan Peninsula defined him. From Manila', one day last week, General Aguinaldo broadcast a demand that Douglas MacArthur surrender immediately. Said a War Department communique: "The appeal was ignored by General MacArthur."

Meantime another old rebel, who some 40 years ago swore that he would never again set foot on U.S. soil, disregarded MacArthur's still-flying flag by setting foot in the Philippines. Old General Artemio Ricarte y Vibora drove proudly about Manila in a sleek limousine, with a spluttering escort of Jap motorcycle guards.

Swart, small General Ricarte is a legend in the Philippines. As commander of the province of Cavite in 1898, he dubbed himself "The Viper," fought valiantly against the U.S. army of occupation. Generalissimo Aguinaldo finally took the oath of allegiance to the U.S., but not General Ricarte. He fled to Japan.

There, in Yokohama's Chinatown, The Viper ran a restaurant, picked up a few more yen by teaching Spanish and Filipino dialects at the Imperial University of Tokyo. Under the tutelage of hoary old Mitsuru Toyama, founder of Japan's fabulous Black Dragon Society, The Viper organized Kapatiran Anak Ng Bayan, a secret society whose aim was to foment uprisings in the Philippines.

Once only, The Viper broke his vow. In Tokyo's great earthquake of 1923, he whimpered himself on to a U.S. warship anchored off Yokohama.

But apparently the Japs had not yet found a really effective Filipino quisling. They announced the creation of a puppet Cabinet, with President Quezon's old aide, plump, moon-faced Jorge B. Vargas as "Chief Administrator." But U.S. Filipinos took Tokyo's announcement with a handful of salt, still had faith in Quezon's Vargas.

There was evidence last week that the Japs were working hard to overcome Filipino sales resistance. Some of the evidence was dropped by Japanese airmen over Douglas MacArthur's lines. Said the pamphlets, characteristically Japanese in their threatening but absurd lingo: "Newly issued war note is controlling more and more the financial activities of Manila day after day. For this reason the money you are receiving from the American forces as your salary is losing its value and will be waste paper in the near future...."

In Washington last week Mike Elizalde took an oath to uphold the Philippine Constitution as Minister without Portfolio in President Quezon's Cabinet. Thus he became in effect, the Philippine Commonwealth's Government in Exile. Of Minister Elizalde's mother and three brothers, now presumably prisoners in the hard little hands of the Japs, there was still no word.

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