M.P.s’ count has Marcos ahead

Press, 15 February 1986, Page 10

M.P.s’ count has Marcos ahead

NZPA-AFP Manila The Opposition Presidential candidate, Corazon Aquino, yesterday prepared plans for a "victory rally” tomorrow as an official count put the President, Mr Ferdinand Marcos, 819,000 votes ahead on early returns in last week’s presidential election. The National Assembly, which adjourned on Thursday evening after tallying 58 of the 127 returns received, showed Mr Marcos with 6.4 million votes to Mrs Aquino’s 5.6 million.

Thirteen returns from outlying provinces had yet to reach the assembly, and the session was punctuated with Opposition protests over defects in the tabled return papers. Mrs Aquino, the widow of the slain opposition leader, Benigno Aquino, urged Mr Marcos to resign from the Presidency to restore confidence and avert the risk of further violence in the country.

She warned that the “chasm” between the official assembly votecount and the “people’s will” could be solved only by a “wider political exercise that enables democracy to be heard." Her spokesman, Rene Saguisag, announced earlier in the day that Mrs Aquino, who how travels under heavy security, would hold a “victory” rally in Manila’s Luneta Park tomorrow and announce plans for a nation-wide campaign of civil disobedience.

Mr Marcos appeared on national television during the televised vote count, saying he would accept the count result "without reservation" and offering to “extend the hand of conciliation to those who have contested the polls with us.” As usual he did not mention Mrs Aquino by name, nor did he spell out any details of his offer. It was important, he said, that one side “unilaterally take the first step to make reconciliation possible.” ,He urged his supporters not to respond “in any manner to any provocation to retaliate."