Struggle in the Barrios

For Filipino voters last week there was no place to hide. Signs and posters begged them to re-elect "the Congress man with the Golden Heart." Along the highways, motorists were urged, DRIVE CAREFULLY THE LIFE YOU SAVE MAY HELP ELECT SERGIO OSMENA JR. There was no escape in movie theaters or bookstores, or on TV or even in the courts--political campaigning has taken over the national life in what has become the closest presidential race in 20 years.

Bathroom Murder. The ruling Liberal Party, headed by incumbent President Diosdado Macapagal, is running scared. The Nacionalistas are crowing that public-opinion polls show their candidate, Senate President Ferdinand Marcos, neck and neck with Macapagal. Both candidates have published glowing biographies. The President's, entitled Macapagal--The Incorruptible, runs over 200 pages. His rival's, called For Every Tear a Victory, is not only fatter and more fulsome, but has been made into a film that runs for three weepy hours. A Manila critic described it as a trilogy: "The first part is about Marcos, the second part is about Marcos, and the third part is about Marcos."

The movie has quite a tale to tell. In 1939, when Marcos was a stripling of 22, he was tried and convicted of the murder of Julio Nalundasan, a political foe of his father's, who was shot dead one evening while brushing his teeth. A brilliant law student who passed his bar exam with the highest grade in the country, Marcos successfully appealed his case to the Supreme Court. During World War II, he led a hard-hitting guerrilla campaign against the Japanese and, at war's end, emerged with 27 U.S. and Filipino medals and citations.

On Again, Off Again. Marcos and his party have been battling a Liberal attempt to ban his biographic film on the flimsy technical grounds that the full Board of Censors had never screened it. The Nacionalistas appealed to the courts and the ban was revoked. The Liberals carried the case to the Court of Appeals and the film was banned again. By last week it had gotten all the way to the Supreme Court, and it appeared that the legal struggle would continue indefinitely. Macapagal's problem is complicated by the fact that his own biographic film--despite simultaneous shooting in three studios and the Malacanang Palace--is not yet ready for release.

There are other issues in the campaign, which has only six weeks to go. In the first, fine rapture of his 1961 election, Macapagal appointed a presidential anti-graft committee. Its report last year stated that "graft and corruption have invaded all branches of the government on a nationwide and more massive scale." The Nacionalistas have tried to use the report against Macapagal, but have been unable to pin anything on him since his personal record is remarkably clean for a Filipino politician. Anticorruption has become the main plank in the campaign of a third candidate in the race, ex-Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus, who left the Liberal Party to run for the presidency as leader of the reform-minded Party for Philippine Progress.

Both major candidates have been touring the grass roots. Macapagal invaded northern Luzon--Marcos' stronghold--in his air-conditioned Ford Galaxie with license plate No. 1, and was in good form, averaging 20 handshakes a minute. Marcos is putting on a more colorful show, appearing bedecked with a lei made of sampaguitas, the national flower, and singing duets with his beauteous wife, Imelda, before jeeping off to the next barrio.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.