The Philippines There Is Always a Next Time

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan

In 1983, three years before Corazon Aquino rode a wave of national anger to become President of the Philippines, one of the country's most astute political observers made an eerily prescient assessment. "So she becomes the rallying point," he said. "Immediately, corruption will increase. Everybody will feather his nest. At that point, she will be nudged to the side and be made a scapegoat for the mess. Then the military will take over. They will say, 'Well, we've given you your chance.' But they will have made sure she would fail. They will then throw her to the people, and they will come in as the great saviors of the republic." The prediction was made by the President's husband Benigno Aquino Jr. shortly before he was assassinated in August 1983. And though he was talking about Imelda Marcos, his scenario was coming true last week for his coup-plagued widow.

As Manila's financial district squeaked away from a showdown that might have turned it into a Southeast Asian Beirut, the President essayed a show of strength by reaching for the People Power that brought her to office. Still, in tacit disobedience to Aquino's stand against a negotiated end to hostilities, her military did not so much quell the coup as reconcile with those who had come closer than ever to unseating her. Even before the latest coup ended, plots were being hatched for the next stage of the rebellion, one the planners are certain will bring about Aquino's fall. As a government trooper who helped put down the mutiny said of the rebels: "Sir, they are not the enemy."

Just as she has done after every other major coup attempt, the President displayed resolve and dispatch. Aquino peremptorily summoned the country's Senators to Malacanang Palace and bluntly presented them with her declaration of a national state of emergency, the closest thing to martial law that the constitution allowed her to impose. At the People Power rally, Aquino, dressed in her trademark yellow, delivered her toughest speech to date, praising loyalists and accusing her political enemies of colluding with the mutineers. She specifically mentioned Vice President Salvador Laurel, opposition Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and her cousin Eduardo Cojuangco, a wealthy crony of Ferdinand Marcos who sneaked into the country a week before the uprising.

As many as 100,000 Filipinos showed up to wave banners and shout, "Cory! Cory!" However, it was reported that some participants were bused in from the provinces, and the government's claim of a turnout of 1 million was hyperbole. But the crowd loved her performance. Said a bystander: "Now we can sleep at night."

Yet Aquino has always been reluctant to follow through on her shows of strength, which she equates with her predecessor Marcos. In the past, every display of post-rebellion resolve has been followed by inconsistency and a return to bureaucratic procrastination. Unfortunately, Aquino's devotion to constitutional principles is "part of the reason she is perceived as being weak," says Elliot Richardson, former U.S. Attorney General, who is now U.S. special representative for the Multilateral Assistance Initiative, an international program that has obtained pledges of $3.5 billion in development aid for the Philippines from a score of countries and institutions. He explains, "She seems totally dedicated to democratic government -- to the point where she will not do things that smack of authoritarianism."

The President may not know what to do with the military. For the past four years, Aquino has depended on the loyalty of Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos to keep the armed forces in line. But Ramos' response to every rebellion has been to patch up relations between the various military factions and restore the uneasy status quo between reformist officers and old-line, self-interested generals. Aquino can no longer afford that kind of detente. Moreover, it has not worked. If she cannot impose civilian authority on the armed forces, then her government may be sidelined into irrelevancy as rival military groups battle it out. Says a young officer who backs the government: "I think Cory will have to be hard on the rebels." But to balance out the harshness, he says, "she must also be hard on the corrupt politicians around her."

The rebels' shadowy National Governing Council is a troika chaired by General Eduardo Abenina and filled out by Lieut. Colonel Gregorio ("Gringo") Honasan, mastermind of the last two coup attempts, and General Jose Maria Zumel, a renegade officer loyal to the cause of Marcos. In a phone call, Abenina told TIME that the rebels could count on about 60% of the military for support. Soon, he said, they will begin a new phase of the rebellion, destroying property and, perhaps, waging a campaign of political assassinations.

He denies that the group is out to kill Aquino. "We shall give her a pleasurable life as a private citizen," said Abenina. "Her official acts -- like the declaration of state of emergency -- we will not question." But he said they would scrutinize her private failure to discipline manipulative ; relatives. For the past year, Aquino has promised to prosecute "one big fish" on graft charges but has yet failed to land a catch. Abenina added, "Had America not intervened, this civil war would have been over by now."

Washington expects more requests for help from the Aquino regime and is determined to do all it can to keep her in power. The Aquino rescue is certain to complicate the negotiations over the two large U.S. installations at Subic Bay and Clark. Aquino, who was thought to favor the bases, may have to remove herself entirely from deliberating the issue. Says a White House official: "The chances of a satisfactory resolution were no more than 50-50 a couple of months ago, and they're less now."

And then there is the rest of Benigno Aquino's prophecy to ponder. With the establishment of an authoritarian military regime, he said, the Communist guerrillas will gain the political and armed initiative. Drawn to protect its strategic bases, the U.S. will have to become partners with the military in a vicious war. The Philippines, Aquino said, will become another El Salvador, a fate that should give pause to even Cory's most unyielding enemies.

With reporting by Nelly Sindayen and William Stewart/Manila