Opposition should win the election, but can it win the count?

Press, 6 February 1986, Page 17

Opposition should win the election, but can it win the count?

As the Philippines prepare for the polls,

MICHAEL WHITE

of the

London “Guardian” assesses the chances of its being a fair election.

In downtown Manila a bustling Dickensian informality reigns over the proceedings of Comelec, the body charged with the considerable task of overseeing what may well be Ferdinand Marcos’s last brush with the Philippine electorate. Behind closed curtains, the ancient air-conditioning humming noisily, Mr Jose Concepcion was vigorously applying white spirit and a yellow toothbrush to a sample of blue ink on the finger of a Government party lawyer. Mr Concepcion, chairman of a citizen’s group prudently established to oversee the overseers, is trying to prove that none of the inks intended to prevent double voting on Friday is indelible enough to withstand the systematic fraud which he anticipates. The presiding Commissioner, Mr Jaime Opinion, agrees and genially orders the three firms contracting to provide 100,000 bottles each (one per polling station), the rival parties, and a public-spirited chemist, to get together and try harder.

It is an impressively conscientious moment, but illusion and reality are hard to disentangle in the election. Sceptics insist that even if Comelec was manned entirely by saints instead of President Marcos-appointees it would be unable to prevent elec-tion-stealing tricks in the rural areas where 75 per cent of the 25 million voters live. If an ink were eventually found to satisfy Mr Concepcion, that ink would not necessarily be the one applied to fingers in polling booths throughout the 7000-island archipelago. Yet foreign critics who denounce a “demonstration election” to placate a fretful ally in Washington find their assumptions under pressure, as does the communist New People’s Army (N.P.A.) which controls an increasing amount of rural territory. Among the voters the feeling grows that the snap poll announced on American TV one Sunday morning may be turning into the very thing Mr Marcos least had in mind: a genuine

verdict on his increasingly dictatorial rule over what is the United States strategic SouthEast Asian frontier, and was once its “showcase of democracy in Asia.”

In which case, the opposition confidently asserts, he would lose resoundingly. But Filipinos who believe passionately in the candidacy of Mrs Corazon “Cory” Aquino, widow of the former opposition leader, whose homely bespectacled face beams from yellow posters, nonetheless falter when they try to look beyond February 7 and envisage a peaceful end to the Marcos era.

“How would he leave the Malacanang palace?” an elderly opponent mused in an Aquino office where they train workers to spot ballot fraud. “He’d have to be dead or drugged.” An aide reports that the phones are not working. “Perhaps we have martial law already,” he jokes. In a rumourladen atmosphere anything is possible.

News has even reached Manila

of a mysterious 500-passenger liner, flying the Filipino flag and lurking in Hong Kong waters. Officially named "President” it has been nicknamed here “the scape boat.” Many speak nervously of a military coup or the restoration of martial law, imposed in 1971 as Marcos neared the end of his last year term of office and technically lifted only in 1981 when it was followed by a fixed election. “We love your adherence to democracy,” noted VicePresident Bush at the time. The armed forces, hugely expanded and Marcos-dominated, like the Government machine, remains a potent political force even as it fails to contain the N.P.A. In Manila there exists a curious air of normality about this stage of the election, notwithstanding the city’s widening gulf of wealth and poverty, beggars camped outside the big hotels and 20,000 child prostitutes according to one estimate — as many as London a century ago. Yet campaign headquarters are full of volunteers. If TV and radio (the latter more important in a country where a TV set can cost a year’s wages) are Government dominated, the press is lively and diverse though only slightly less Government dominated. “F.M. and F.L. World Class Grafters” screams the Opposition paper, “Malaya,” on the strength of a

United States congressman’s renewed charge against the saltedaway billions of Ferdinand Marcos and his F.L. — First Lady, Imelda, whose face is tactfully not on her husband’s posters this time. “F.M. ill — bleeds” says “The Inquirer.” Their circulations are puny (“Malaya” claims 60,000) but in Latin America, with which frequent comparisons are made, they might be closed or worse. However, after February 7 General Fabian Ver, chief of the armed forces and acquitted in the plot to kill Benigno Aquino, hints: “Communists” will be dealt with.

What the Opposition has in spontaneous enthusiasm and small yellow “Cory” stickers, the 68-year-old President compensates for with large displays, sometimes on family-owned property of which there is plenty, like the posh Manila Hotel. Comelec says that some Marcos posters exceed the stated size limit (2.5 metres by 1 metre) and wants them removed. Appearances are very proper. “Now More Than Ever” is the Marcos slogan. Alas, a harsh reality keeps intruding in the same papers which berate each other’s candidate (“Opposition Dared: Condemn N.P.A. Activities”) and expose official machinations (some uniforms never delivered to the army at a cost of $13,500 are traced by “Malaya” to a marine

colonel). Daily they report killings in both town and countryside. “Guns, goons, and gold” are an old election weakness here, but the N.P.A. insurgency is both a reality and an excuse. Last week, Jeremias de Jesus, an Aquino organiser in Tarlac, and his driver, were gunned down. A personal grudge, possibly an N.P.A. killing, says the Government. An intimidatory murder, says Mrs Aquino. What has given this contest vigour is a surge of hope. “What I find inspiring in this country,” an intellectual said, “is the loss of fear.” More than that. The opposition has done far better than it — or Marcos — could have expected: united instead of running rival tickets, and finding that Aquino’s politically inexperienced widow has drawn huge and enthusiastic crowds. She learned fast. In contrast to her energetic tour, Marcos sounds bad and looks worse. When he collapsed during a rally, aides insisted that he merely fell. On TV he is seen jogging, but only on TV. The old rumours of an incurable kidney condition are back on the front page. If that was not enough his security men nearly crashed a light aircraft into him. No-one would have believed that was an accident, though it would have been. If anyone is going to get bumped off, say the Manila wits, it is the expendable Marcos

running mate, Arturo Tolentino, so the F.M. can justify imposing martial law.

It may just be that the most significant psychological blow was delivered by the one organisation which Marcos cannot easily touch and which can alone rival his own machine: the Catholic Church. Not the Liberation theology priests this time, but the pastoral letter. “A Call To Conscience,” issued to every pulpit by Cardinal Jaime Sin himself.

Ostensibly neutral, the language is actually anything but. It denounces “undue pressure,” “evil tactics,” and “black propagranda,” and calls for “a new beginning.” On a practical note the Cardinal declares that accepting a bribe and then voting

with one’s conscience is not a sin. In a regime as tainted as this one, this could release a lot of votes.

Belatedly pressed by Washington to clean up his act and share a little power, President Marcos called the United States bluff by saying “all or nothing.” It is just possible that the voters may call his bluff in sufficient numbers to make it very hard for him to cheat enough to win.

As he introduced a new defector from the Marcos camp the other day (actually the First Lady’s nephew), Benigno Aquino’s brother Butz put it this way. “I have no doubt right now that we have the people’s vote. Ninety per cent of our energy today must be to make sure their votes count.”