MAGSAYSAY FACES HIS OPPOSITION

THE PHILIPPINES

The strongest and best friend of the U.S. in the Far East is 46-year-old Ramon Magsaysay, President of the Philippines. A guerrilla fighter against the Japanese in World War II, a passionate admirer of Americans, and the man who as Defense Secretary crushed the Communist Huks, Magsaysay was elected President by a landslide last November. In five months in office, he has had to make the difficult transition from hero-above-politics to political leader. From Manila, TIME Senior Editor John Osborne cabled this report on the tough opposition Magsaysay faces inside his own party, and of how he met it last week.

AT noon one day last week, a thin woman with roughened hands and bitter mouth walked across the huge chandeliered reception room at Malacanan, the palace of Filipino Presidents, and into the office marked "Presidential Complaints and Action Commission." A tired but courteous official asked her to sit down and tell him her trouble. Her problem, she said in soft Tagalog, was that her husband was about to go off to the U.S. and abandon her; she wanted President Magsaysay to keep him at home.

Such a request did not surprise the official. He and others at Malacanan have heard wives complain that their husbands were too vigorous, or impotent, or unfaithful; they have been asked to redress the wrongs of abused farm tenants, to pay the rent of impoverished widows. Filipinos have inundated the Complaints and Action Commission with 23,000 requests for help since Magsaysay set it up last January. In a country where the fortunate learn early to use their government, and the unfortunate to fear it, the word has gone out that any man or woman, rich or poor, may come to Magsaysay and be heard.

"You Will See." The President himself had gone off to his yacht that day for a few hours of escape. Not long ago, the favor-seekers would have sought him out directly and engulfed him. Now, Magsaysay says, he has put them in good hands, and seldom has to see more than 500 persons a day himself.

Magsaysay also believes that he is getting the larger aspects of being President under control, though he is aware that there is some doubt on that score among some of his sincerest associates and admirers. "When you ride a strange horse, you always have a little trouble," Magsaysay says soberly, "no matter how good a horseman you are. Now I know my horse. There will be no more trouble. You will see."

Millions of his countrymen, including some who have made a lot of trouble for him and will make more, hope that Ramon Magsaysay is right. A Senator of his Nacionalista Party, said last week: "This man is the only hope of our country. He must succeed. It will be a tragedy if he fails."

Yet this very man, voicing hopes that are nigh unanimous throughout the Philippines, feels obliged to harass and oppose the President on many major issues. Why? It is part of a strange and complex yet somehow simple story, a story which begins with the fact that Magsaysay is the prophet and product of a genuine revolution. He personifies and has brought to vivid life the tired cliche that the little people of his country expect him to govern for them. As his critics and intellectual superiors are prone to say, there are many things that he does not know, perhaps including how to run a modern government. But this he does know: the people of his country are his strength.

Everybody Wishes Well. The first session of the Filipino Congress in Magsaysay's administration ended recently. On the surface, he seemed to come through the session very well: he got most of the legislation he asked for. The big challenges to his authority were overcome or postponed. But the reality was different.

Magsaysay got his legislation enacted only because he finally faced up to a conflict with the senior Nacionalista Party leaders, the very men who persuaded him to leave ex-President Quirino's Liberal Party last year and run for President as a Nacionalista. The core of the conflict, the question to be decided, is whether the old politicos or Magsaysay will govern the nation, and for whose benefit.

Other questions are involved. One is whether the Philippines is to remain a firm ally of the U.S. in Asia (as will be the case if Magsaysay wins the struggle) or becomes an uneasy neutralist dependency, tied to the U.S. by bonds it cannot escape yet led by men who in varying degree detest the bonds and distrust the U.S.

Another question is how well the Philippines is to be governed. Magsaysay has yet to demonstrate that if he wins the current political struggle, the Philippines will be well, or even strongly, governed.

Countless episodes have created--and to some extent justified--an impression that Magsaysay, for all his forthright talk, wavers in the clinches, vacillates, makes and countermands and remakes decisions.

He sporadically seeks to solve his problems with bursts of direct action which often merely compound his troubles and confuse subordinates. Many of the President's friends share the concern recently expressed by a Manila editor: "Everybody still wishes Magsaysay well. It is about time he gave the people more than honesty, integrity and the common touch. The government must be uncommonly capable, efficient and effective, too." Most of the men now opposing Magsaysay got behind him originally in the sincere hope that he would bring about a better and a fairer balance of life in the islands. What, then, divides them and the President? It is partly Magsaysay's refusal (erratic and inconsistent, but nevertheless determining) to play the game of politics as they know it. Partly it is pride: for example, old and venerated Senator Jose Laurel, the man who did most to elect Magsaysay under Nacionalista banners, expects to be recognized and consulted as one of Magsaysay's principal advisers and fiercely resents Magsaysay's failure to do so openly and regularly. But mostly it is intolerable to these men who have been in politics for so long that this one man's power should be so much greater than theirs and their party's.

Relentless Enemy. Laurel's personal urge for power is subdued by age (63).

Not so Laurel's principal partner in leadership of the Nacionalista Party, his one-time enemy and current friend. Senator Claro Recto. In the five months since Magsaysay was inaugurated, Recto has firmly established himself as a brilliant, determined and relentless enemy of 1) Ramon Magsaysay and 2) U.S. policy and U.S. interests in Asia. Apart from politics and foreign affairs, he is Manila's most distinguished and probably its most successful corporation lawyer. Now 64. he is pudgy, softspoken, incisively gentle in conversation but savage in political combat or in a courtroom. Recto was born in southern Luzon in the province of Taya-bas (now Quezon). His father, though he could not write, was a man of some importance in his village. Recto himself, educated by the Jesuits, stood at the head of his classes at Santo Tomas law school, learned to speak and write perfect Castilian (then the mark of a cultured gentleman).

He spent the prewar years in the ranks of those who demanded immediate freedom from the U.S. at all costs, by World War II was one of the islands' "Big Five" political leaders. With Jose Laurel he was in the Japanese puppet regime during occupation, serving in a manner which Filipinos have come to regard as in the best interests of his countrymen. Recto, who insisted on being tried as a collaborator after the war to clear himself of all taint (he was acquitted), and Laurel both still resent bitterly General Douglas MacArthur's postwar treatment of them and what they regard as U.S. misjudgment of their wartime roles under the Japanese.

Unfriendly Friendship. Recto is the Nacionalista Party's foreign affairs spokesman, chairman of the Senate's armed services committee and dominant member of its foreign affairs committee. From those strategic points, he is busily at work sniping at the works of Magsaysay and of the U.S. His objectives and motives are hotly debated in Manila. His dominant ambition at the moment seems to be to cut Magsaysay down to size. Since Magsaysay is the republic's most ardent pro-American, Recto attacks him by attacking things American. Recto himself maintains that he really likes the U.S.

and merely wants to show it, as a friend, how to be right and effective in Asia. But Americans in Manila have come to feel that the U.S. can well do without this particular kind of friendly help.

Signature on Paper. Recto's recommendations and. attitudes resemble in many ways those of India's Nehru--or at any rate come to about the same end. Recto currently opposes U.S.--and Magsaysay--policy on such crucial questions as the status of U.S. bases in the Philippines, trade terms, mutual security arrangements. One day not long ago, he enraged an American at a Lions Club meeting in Manila. The American asked if he simply refuses to trust the word of the U.S. He would trust the U.S., Recto answered, only if he had its signature on paper.

In return for his strong sponsorship of Magsaysay, Recto won the Under Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs for one of his young law associates, Leon Guerrero.

Guerrero, without consultation with President Magsaysay, promptly proclaimed that "Asia for the Asians" was to be the basis of Philippine foreign policy. Recto and Laurel enthusiastically applauded.

Magsaysay, rightly seeing in it a direct challenge to his authority and his policy, banned use of the slogan in the future.

This deepened Recto's dissatisfaction, and a showdown became unavoidable.

Would Magsaysay or Recto's "old guard" run the party and the government? Last week President Magsaysay drafted a five-point "summary of general principles," then invited Nacionalista Party leaders to dine with him at Malacanan. Only Senator Recto refused to go; he was in mourning for a son who was killed in a recent accident.

On a wide and windy balcony overlooking the dirty Pasig River, the Senators and Congressmen affably downed a hearty dinner of turtle soup, egg. roast beef and ice cream. Then Magsaysay handed his statement of principles to Senator Eulogio Rodriguez, president of both the party and the Senate, who read it to the group.

It pledged all elected officials to "carry out the mandate of the national electorate," including Magsaysay's campaign promise of land reform. In two direct par agraphs, Magsaysay laid before the politicians the heart of the conflict: "Recognizing the clear and inescapable threat of Communist imperialism . . . the administration seeks participation in the free world's collective security mechaniasm to the fullest extent of our capabilities . . .

"The administration is committed to the maintenance and strengthening of tra ditional ties of friendship and cooperation with the U.S. . . ." Things went well. The assembled politicians suggested a minor change in wording here & there. President Magsaysay salved Jose Laurel's pique by agreeing to hold a weekly breakfast parley with Senate and House leaders.

Then, one by one, with Jose Laurel in the forefront, the politicos endorsed the President's statement of principles. It was a sharp setback for Claro Recto. Ramon Magsaysay, by resisting his first impetuous urge to make a clean break from the Nacionalista leaders, had won their pledged support. But whether it would prove a decisive victory remains to be seen. Senator Recto did not admit defeat, and some Nacionalistas still look upon him as one of their leaders. But Magsaysay, the amateur, had won his first big victory over the professional politicians.

He will doubtless have to win more to achieve the success so many wish for him, but in winning the first one he had demonstrated how democracy responds to good intentions strongly put. The old pros knew they did not dare split away from the most popular and most trusted man in the Philippines.

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