The Philippines Death In Manila

By EDWARD W. DESMOND

When thousands of demonstrators set out in Manila last week to march on Malacanang Palace, the office of President Corazon Aquino, the police took standard precautions. To contain the roisterous crowd, which chanted demands for immediate land reform, 500 riot policemen equipped with truncheons and metal shields lined up in eight-deep rows at the foot of the Mendiola Bridge, the main approach to the palace. Two water cannons and eight fire trucks pulled up as well, and a contingent of Philippine marines, on temporary security duty at Malacanang, deployed behind the police phalanx.

By late afternoon the 10,000 protesters, some armed with iron rods and wooden clubs with nails protruding, began advancing on the bridge. As Jaime Tadeo, a leftist peasant leader, shouted, "Charge Malacanang! Break down the barricades!" and his followers returned a chant of "Revolution! Revolution!," the protesters closed with the security forces. At first the policemen held their ground, but as the crowd pushed forward amid a hail of stones, the police lines began wavering. Frantic police officers shouted, "You can't go through." Tadeo, struggling in the front lines, yelled back, "We're going to Malacanang, and you can't stop us."

Then the confrontation turned murderous. No one would say later who had given the order, or whether any was issued, but suddenly the marines put their M-16 rifles to their shoulders and began firing into the crowd. A few demonstrators drew guns of their own and fired back; thousands of others dashed for cover, some dragging dead and wounded comrades behind them. For more than a minute the rattle of automatic-weapons fire echoed across the bridge. When the marines finally stopped firing, four jeeps raced after the protesters, the soldiers aboard loosing tear-gas canisters to disperse what remained of the crowd.

In the street at least twelve protesters lay dead and dozens wounded; the final count of injured would reach 94. Not only were the deaths the first to have occurred in a demonstration against the Aquino government, but the toll surpassed that of a similar tragedy in Manila in September 1983, when Ferdinand Marcos was still in power. At that time eleven people were killed at the very same spot during an antiregime rally. Surveying the scene after last week's carnage, a policeman shook his head and muttered, "They fired too soon."

For Aquino, the incident triggered the worst crisis her eleven-month-old government has faced since a military coup attempt last November that fizzled before it got off the ground. Two hours after the marines opened fire at the bridge, word reached Malacanang of a further setback: talks had broken off between the government and the National Democratic Front, the political wing of the Communist New People's Army (N.P.A.) in the effort to end the Philippines' 18-year-old insurgency. Leftists as well as rightists quickly seized on the setbacks to launch attacks on the President.

The killings could not have come at a worse time for Aquino, whose brief presidency has been a perilous struggle to unite the divided country under her popular leadership. The trouble broke less than two weeks before she is to face a major political test: a Feb. 2 plebiscite on a new constitution, drafted by her government. If the basic law, which would supplant the Marcos constitution of 1973, wins the voters' approval, it will not only confirm Aquino in the presidency for a full six-year term but will be widely viewed as an indicator of her popularity and legitimacy. Critics on the left complain the proposed constitution does not address the problems of the poor, while rightists assert that Aquino is not empowered to void the old constitution.

In Washington, U.S. State Department Spokesman Charles Redman expressed regret for the deaths. In private, a State Department official said he felt the government was stable, though he expected more challenges as Feb. 2 drew near. "There is an obligation to hope that she will pull through," he said. "She is the only viable leader."

When Aquino was told of the shootings, she immediately conferred with General Fidel Ramos, the armed forces Chief of Staff, General Rafael Ileto, the Defense Minister, and other officials. Later that evening she went on television to address the country. Looking drawn, and reading from a prepared text, she expressed her "deep regrets" at "this bloody incident" and promised a full investigation. "In the period before the plebiscite," she said, "attempts to destabilize the government and defeat our democratic aims will intensify. I urge our people to maintain sobriety."

Her foes paid her no heed. In a rash of statements, left-wingers likened the President to Marcos, while rightists denounced her, as they frequently have in the past, as too weak and indecisive to run a government. Said a statement issued by Bayan, the largest leftist coalition: "Bayan points the finger of guilt at the Aquino government. By this act it has been shorn of all past claims of being democratic and antifascist." Juan Ponce Enrile, the ambitious former Defense Minister who was sacked by Aquino after the November coup attempt, also pounced on the President. "It is about time," he declared, "that we remove the masks worn by those of our national leadership and expose the true nature of their capacity to run the affairs of our republic."

In an effort to discover how the tragedy at the Mendiola Bridge could have happened, Aquino appointed Vincente Abad Santos, a retired Supreme Court Justice, to conduct an inquiry. She accepted the offer of General Ramon Montano, the constabulary chief of Manila, to take a leave. Montano admitted that the soldiers "might have overreacted," but "as far as we are concerned, we exercised maximum tolerance. We had to stop them, or they would have been all over Malacanang." That did not explain why tear gas, water cannons and fire hoses had not been used against the crowd before the security forces began shooting.

The demonstrators also came under scrutiny. Government officials charged that from the start provocateurs in the crowd were intent on creating a violent confrontation. Several policemen were bludgeoned by protesters, and four had to be treated for bullet wounds. To back their contention further that the security forces had come under fire, the police showed reporters a riot shield punctured by a bullet hole.

If explanations for the actions of the security forces remained elusive, there were no questions about the origin of the demonstration. For the past five weeks, several thousand members of the Farmers Movement of the Philippines (k.m.p.), a leftist peasant group with links to the Communist Party, have been camping in a tent city around the Ministry of Agrarian Reform, not far from Malacanang. Their cause, as summed up by Tadeo, a K.M.P. leader who escaped unharmed from the melee: "A minimum program of agrarian reform."

The land-reform issue is one of the most troublesome problems faced by the Aquino government. Landless peasants, organized by the Communists, are pressing demands that can only be met by adopting the n.p.a.'s plans for the wholesale confiscation of land from wealthy and powerful interests. (Aquino's own family has a 16,000-acre sugar plantation in Central Luzon.) The government favors gradual land reform without dispossessing landowners. Though hampered by a shortage of funds with which to purchase land, it has so far granted plots to 6,000 farmers and plans eventually to expand the program to benefit 4 million of the country's 39 million peasants.

The day before the ill-fated demonstration Tadeo met with Agriculture Minister Heherson Alvarez at the ministry office in Quezon City to discuss K.M.P. demands once again. The conversation soon deteriorated into a shouting match, and the two men nearly came to blows. Tadeo stalked out of the meeting and later told peasants at a rally, "In light of recent developments, the possibility that Filipino peasants will finally own the land they till is quite remote."

The government's carefully nurtured talks with the National Democratic Front collapsed the same day because of anonymous threats against the lives of the negotiators. Clandestine discussions had begun as early as August and had led to a 60-day cease-fire between the military and the insurgents that is to expire Feb. 7. In announcing the breakup of the talks, Teofisto Guingona, the chief negotiator for the government, explained that "some elements are out to destabilize not only the government but also the peace process," so that the lives of those directly responsible for the talks are "imperiled." Nonetheless, he said, "lines of communication ((with the rebels)) are continuously open."

How much use those lines would see was unclear. Saturnino Ocampo, the top negotiator for the Communist insurgents, insisted that the guerrillas would observe the truce until Feb. 7, but did not appear optimistic about a resumption of discussions. Francisco Pascual, another rebel official, suggested that last week's killings might "affect the peace talks because we support the marchers' right to organize and air their grievances." Evidence also surfaced that the Communists had been prepared all along to pull out of the negotiations. In several towns guerrillas who had come out of the jungle during the cease-fire disappeared, apparently returning to their hideouts.

There were suggestions in Manila newspapers that anti-Communist hard- liners in the military had helped undermine the peace effort. Though Aquino and Defense Minister Ileto favor negotiations, some military officers argue that compromise with the Communists is impossible and that the cease-fire only postpones the inevitable resumption of fighting. A study conducted by army intelligence and released last week concluded that a "cessation of hostilities" was a "practical impossibility" because the revolutionary principles of the rebels are nonnegotiable. Enrile uses that very argument to rally his supporters against Aquino; the officers suspected of involvement in November's coup plot share his view.

The excitement generated by the Mendiola Bridge clash and the collapse of the truce talks nearly buried allegations of yet another conspiracy against Aquino. Though the President denied that such an effort had been under way, top-ranking military officers handed journalists a document prepared for Major General Rodolfo Canieso, the commanding general of the army, confirming that there had been new plotting. The report said the conspiracy had been hatched by five brigadier generals and a colonel who were "in league" with Marcos supporters and powerful businessmen "disgusted by the security situation." The report provided no explanation of how the effort had been foiled.

At week's end Aquino was facing yet another headache: release of a tape by Enrile's ally Homobono Adaza that records a phone call between the President and her representatives on the constitutional commission. The conversations indicate that Aquino strongly opposed language in the law that would bar U.S. bases, a point she addresses more gingerly in public. The only bright spot in the week, it seemed, was news that the Philippines' Western creditors had agreed to reschedule the country's $870 million debt, an important international vote of confidence in the Aquino government.

With hopes of reconciliation with the Communists fading and the Philippine military less than united, observers in Manila suggested that Aquino would have to act swiftly and firmly to assert her authority. A favorable vote in the plebiscite on the constitution, for which she resumed campaigning late last week, should give her government some respite. In the end, however, she may not be able to avoid an out-and-out confrontation with antidemocratic forces of left and right, meaning that she may have to send the military back into battle with the guerrillas and put coup plotters behind bars. "Whatever Aquino does," said a ranking government official, "the honeymoon is definitely over." Now it is up to Aquino to make her presidency work.

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen/Manila