The Split Is Open

For two years, no opposition critic has given popular President Ramon Magsaysay so much trouble as one outspoken member of his own Nacionalista Party. Wealthy old (65) Senator Claro Recto is an adroit corporation lawyer and the party's most vociferous voice in the Senate. Back in 1953, when the party badly needed a popular presidential candidate, Senator Recto had a major voice in the decision to reach into the Liberal Party and tap able young Ramon Magsaysay, then busy hunting down the Communist Huks as Defense Minister in the Quirino government. Ever since, Senator Recto has acted like a man who regretted his choice.

As chairman of the armed services committee and the dominant member of the foreign relations committee, Recto opposed Magsaysay almost from the moment he took office. Magsaysay was firmly and proudly pro-U.S. Recto, who, for being Foreign Minister in the Japanese occupation government, was once tried for collaboration (and acquitted), opposed U.S. policy at every turn. Recto complained at the extension of U.S. bases in the Philippines, objected that U.S. security guarantees were "vague and equivocal" (he wanted them "automatic"), opposed SEATO as "unduly provoking Red China," and launched a virulent attack on Magsaysay's recognition of South Viet Nam, "a despotic oligarchy" which "does not possess the most elementary attributes of sovereignty." Magsaysay, he charged, was acting as "an American puppet."

This was more than Ramon Magsaysay could take. In a press conference the President last week declared flatly that he would oppose Senator Recto's renomination this fall, would campaign against him if the Nacionalista Party nominated him. "Recto is against America and, because I am a friend of America, he is against me," said Magsaysay.

The split was wide open. Recto lashed back: "I shall hound him from barrio to barrio."

Magsaysay, who makes no bones about his admiration of the U.S., promptly challenged Recto to run against him in the presidential elections in 1957. "He can run as the candidate of Mao Tse-tung, and I will run as an enemy of Communism and friend of the U.S.," snapped Magsaysay.

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