TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/86/86capts.6

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March 10, 1986

Forbearance, diplomatic skill and some luck led to the end of the
Marcos era

"Senator, what do you think?  Should I step down?"

It was the second time that Paul Laxalt, the Nevada Republican and
personal friend of Ronald Reagan's, had spoken that day with
Ferdinand Marcos, the beleaguered President of the Philippines.  At 2
o'clock (EST) last Monday afternoon, Marcos telephoned Laxalt, who
had visited Manila in October as a special emissary, with an urgent
question:  Was it true, as U.S Ambassador Stephen Bosworth had told
him, that President Reagan was calling for a "peaceful transition to
a new government" in the Philippines?  While the two men talked,
Laxalt said later, it became apparent that Marcos was "hanging on,
looking for a life preserver.  He was a desperate man clutching at
straws."  He asked whether the reference to a "peaceful transition"
meant he should stay on until 1987, when his current term was
originally supposed to end, and he wondered whether some sort of
power-sharing arrangement with the Philippine opposition could be
worked out.

Marcos spoke of his fear that his palace was about to be attacked,
but seemed determined to stay on as President.  At Marcos' request,
Laxalt then went to the White House, where he discussed the
conversation with Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz.  The
President repeated his desire for a peaceful, negotiated settlement
in the Philippines and said once more that Marcos would be welcome if
he decided to seek sanctuary in the U.S.  But Reagan said he thought
the idea of power sharing was impractical and that it would be
undignified for Marcos to stay on as a "consultant."

At 4:15 p.m. Laxalt called Marcos, who immediately asked whether
Reagan wanted him to step down.  Laxalt said the President was not in
a position to make that kind of demand.  Then Marcos put the question
directly to Laxalt:  What should he do?  Replied the Senator:  "Mr.
President, I'm not bound by diplomatic restraint.  I'm talking only
for myself.  I think you should cut and cut cleanly.  The time has
come."  There was a long pause that to Laxalt seemed interminable.
Finally he asked, "Mr. President, are you still there?"  Marcos
replied, in a subdued voice, "Yes, I'm still here.  I am so very,
very disappointed."

In Manila it was after 5 o'clock in the morning of the longest day of
Ferdinand Marcos' life.  Before it was over, he would attend his
final inauguration ceremony, a foolish charade carried out in the
sanctuary of his Malacanang Palace.  That evening, a ruler no more,
he would flee with his family and retainers aboard four American
helicopters to Clark Air Base on the first leg of a flight that would
take him to Guam, Hawaii and exile.

That same night, to mark the end of his increasingly authoritarian
20-year rule, millions of his countrymen would stage one of the
biggest celebrations in the Philippines since its deliverance from
the Japanese in 1945 and its independence from the U.S. in 1946.  At
the Malacanang Palace, giddy with excitement, hundreds of Filipinos
would scale fences and storm their way through locked doors in order
to glimpse--and in some cases to loot--the ornate Spanish-style
palace that had served as Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos' seat of
almost absolute power.

If there was something inexplicable about the mass phenomenon that
rescued the island nation from a failing dictatorship, enabling
thousands of unarmed civilians to protect one faction of the armed
forces from the other, there was not doubt when the process began.
It was Aug. 21. 1983, on the tarmac at Manila international airport.
On that day, Opposition Politician Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino Jr., 50,
returning from three years of self-imposed exile in the U.S., was
slain by a single bullet as he stepped off a jetliner into a crowd of
soldiers and well-wishers.  Though Marcos tried to put the blame on
Communist agitators, one Filipino civilian and 25 members of the
military, including General Fabian Ver, the armed forces Chief of
Staff and Marcos stalwart, were indicted on charges of conspiracy to
commit murder.  The defendants were acquitted in December after a
yearlong trial, but few Filipinos doubted their guilt.

The Aquino murder shocked and angered the country, sparking popular
demonstrations and intensifying the disaffection with Marcos.  It
infuriated thousands of professional military men, who bitterly
resented the politicization that the armed forces were undergoing and
the hatred that this process was engendering.  Of the assassination,
Colonel Gregorio Honosan says today, "From a military viewpoint, it
is technically impossible to get inside a cordon of 2,000 men, so
this reinforced our belief that nobody in government could be safe."

The assassination produced a sharp increase in the size and intensity
of Communist guerrilla activity by the military organization called
the New People's Army.  Though the insurgency is concentrated on
Mindanao and some other southern islands, it spread after the Aquino
assassination to 60 of the country's 74 provinces.  In addition, the
killing of Aquino created a nationwide crisis of confidence that
caused the already stagnant economy to spiral downward, even as most
other Southeast Asian nations were prospering.  After the
assassination, says an American official, "all these concerns took a
quantum leap."

Two of the most important elements of Philippine society, the church
and the military, began quickly turning against Marcos.  The
Archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin, is a powerful figure in a
country nominally 85% Roman Catholic, and his opposition to Marcos
was clear.  He increasingly and openly encouraged opposition
political figures.

The revolt in the armed forces began to take shape as long ago as
1977, when a power struggle within the Marcos government eroded the
influence of the President's longtime political ally Defense Minister
Juan Ponce Enrile.  "It began as a self-defense action," recalls Navy
Captain Rex Robles, a spokesman for the Reform the Armed Forces
Movement, which Enrile now confirms he clandestinely helped
establish.  Realizing that he was being pushed aside in a power
struggle with General Ver, Enrile, a Harvard-trained lawyer, began to
work secretly to protect himself and lay the groundwork for the
inevitable post-Marcos period.

Late last fall events began to move rapidly.  In November, Marcos
declared that he would hold a special presidential election to
convince the Reagan Administration that he still enjoyed popular
support.  a month later, immediately following the acquittal of Ver,
Corazon Aquino announced that she would challenge Marcos for the
presidency.  Cardinal Sin then helped persuade former Senator
Salvador Laurel to join the Aquino ticket.  In the meantime Enrile
had been building his reform-movement, a highly visible band of about
100 well-trained soldiers whose aim was not to topple marcos but to
pressure him to reorganize the military.  Throughout the election
campaign, while Enrile publicly supported Marcos, his reformers
conducted a crusade for honest voting that angered the President and
the Ver faction in the military.  The reformers in turn were enraged
by the strong-arm methods used by the pro-Marcos forces in the vote
counting, and even more by the assassination of Evelio Javier, a
leading opposition figure.  Nonetheless they remained inactive
because they wanted to appear impartial.  The military men had
already established links with Corazon Aquino, and before the
campaign had helped train her security detail.

Once the voting was over, the reformers prepared to take a more
active part in the efforts to topple Marcos.  By this time they had
won the support of some of the Marcos family's closest security
forces.  Says one reformist:  "I don't think the President thought
that so many of his praetorian guards would turn against him.  He
thought money could buy loyalty.  He underestimated the basic decency
of Filipinos."  The group tested palace security by smuggling cars
filled with empty boxes into the palace grounds.  Since nobody
bothered to stop them, they realized they would be able to bring in
explosives if they should choose to do so.

Two weeks ago the reformers learned that they were in imminent
danger.  As the first step in a byzantine crackdown, Marcos arrested
a group of soldiers.  Though these troops were not members of the
reform movement, the reformers theorized that the men would be used
to incriminate them.  The rebels suspected that the threatened
crackdown was a maneuver by Ver and supporters to reinforce their
links with Marcos.  At the same time, however, there were reports
that some sort of coup might actually be in the making.

Immediately the reformers decided to accelerate their plans.  They
reached Enrile, who was sitting in the coffeehouse in the Atrium
building in Makati, and informed him of what was happening.  On
Saturday, Feb. 22, Enrile resigned from the government and announced
that he was joining the opposition forces.  Some of Enrile's
reformist colleagues tried to convince him that such a move would
merely forewarn Marcos of the group's intentions, but he insisted, "I
just cannot do this to the President otherwise."

The decision made, he sought Lieut. General Fidel Ramos' help.  "I
called Eddie.  I had never discussed anything with him over the
years, except in terms of the reform movement's general lack of
aggressive intentions and its interest in institutional change.  I
told him, 'My boys are in this predicament, and I will have to be
with them.  I would like to find out whether you will join us or
not.'  General Ramos said, 'I am with you all the way.'"

At the moment of showdown, Cardinal Sin again played a crucial role.
He publicly praised Enrile and Ramos, and called on the Philippine
people to take to the streets in peaceful support of them.  Radio
Veritas, the Catholic station, became the unofficial broadcaster of
the rebellion, reporting on military units that had joined the
opposition and giving instructions to crowds.

In the end the ailing Marcos, who is reported to be suffering from a
form of systemic lupus erythematosus, a disease in which human
antibodies attack the body's tissue, especially the kidneys, was
woefully uninformed as to what the reformers were really up to and
how much support they had gained.  Says Enrile:  "Evidently the
President was a captive of a group in the military.  That was the sad
thing about it."

Reagan Administration policy during the final hours of the Marcos
reign was set during a meeting last Sunday morning in the Bethesda,
Md., home of Secretary of State George Shultz, at which the
President's special envoy, Philip Habib, who had returned from Manila
only hours before, presented a report on his trip.  In attendance
were Caspar Weinberger, the Secretary of Defense; Admiral William
Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Robert Gates,
deputy director for intelligence of the Central Intelligence Agency;
and John Poindexter, the National Security Adviser.  Also present
were three officials who had been preoccupied with the Philippine
crisis for months:  Michael Armacost, Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs; Paul Wolfowitz, Assistant Secretary of State for
East Asian and Pacific Affairs; and Richard Armitage, Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy.

The group agreed on four principles, which were subsequently
presented to President Reagan:  Marcos' ability to govern with the
consent of his people had ended; any effort by him to crush the
reform movement would only worsen the situation; it was of great
importance to the U.S. that force not be used; and it would be
damaging to U.S. standing in the world if Marcos were treated like
the Shah of Iran, who was admitted to the U.S. for medical treatment
but was not permitted by the Carte Administration to remain.  As it
turned out, Marcos was less worried about the fate of the Shah than
about what happened to Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese President
who was assassinated during a 1963 coup.  Says one senior American
official:  "He wanted to make sure he did not leave with a bullet."

President Reagan, who had once solidly supported Marcos, quickly
accepted the four-point policy.  Reagan's views had already been
shifting during the previous three weeks.  Indeed, in response to
Marcos' deteriorating situation, he had moved rapidly from his
dismaying remark after the election that there had probably been
voting fraud on both sides to a White House statement condemning the
election as fatally flawed by fraud, most of it on the part of the
Marcos forces.

At a Sunday-afternoon meeting of the National Security Council,
Special Envoy Habib reported flatly, "The Marcos era has ended."
Shultz summarized the views of the participants by saying that "not a
person here" believed Marcos could remain in power, adding, "He's had
it."  President Reagan agreed but remained concerned about the fate
of MArcos.  Said Reagan:  "We'll treat this man in retirement with
dignity.  He is not to wander."

By then the Administration was emphasizing as strongly as possible
that Marcos should avoid a military showdown.  On Saturday, Reagan
sent the Philippine leader an appeal not to use force to remain in
power.  Next day he dispatched a second message, advising Marcos that
he as well as his family and close associates was welcome to live in
the U.S.  White House Spokesman Larry Speaks announced that American
military aid to the Philippines would be cut off if troops loyal to
Marcos used the army against the Philippine reform movement forces
led by Enrile and Ramos.  On Sunday evening, Shultz and Under
Secretary of State Armacost met at the State Department with Blas
Ople, Marcos' Minister of Labor, who had come to Washington to plead
the Philippine President's case.  According to Ople, the American
diplomats gave him a blunt message:  Marcos had lost control of his
army, the troops under General Ver were ineffectual, and if Marcos
did no step down, the country could be heading for civil war.  A
similar statement was sent to the U.S. Ambassador in Manila, Stephen
Bosworth, who took it to Marcos.

It was early Monday morning before Ople finally managed to talk to
Marcos by telephone.  The Philippine President was angry that while
his palace was being threatened and his television station taken
over, the U.S. was telling him not to defend himself.  He told Ople
that Mrs. Marcos was there beside him and "she doesn't want to
leave."  Later that day, at about the same time Marcos was calling
Senator Laxalt, Imelda Marcos telephoned Nancy Reagan.  The message
was the same:  Mrs. Reagan urged the Marcoses to avoid bloodshed,
expressed concern for their family, and assured Mrs. Marcos that they
were welcome to come to the U.S.

The Administration was worried about General Ver, who on Monday was
still in a position to attempt a last-gasp military move.  There were
reports that he was about to send tanks to attack the reformers.
Accordingly, the National Security Council sent a message to Ver
advising him that it would not be in his "interest" to make a
military move.  Translation:  if he called out troops, he would
forfeit his chance of being included in the Marcos rescue operation.
The warning was heeded.

In the period following the Aquino assassination, American
policymakers had become increasingly concerned about the Philippines'
rapid political and economic decline.  One particular concern was the
future status of the two large U.S. military installations in the
Philippines, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base.  The leases on
those facilities will run out in 1991, but the U.S. hopes that they
can be renegotiated.  Following a 1984 policy review by the National
Security Council, which concluded that Marcos would "try to remain in
power indefinitely," the Administration began to work for economic,
political and military reform in the Philippines.  Shultz laid down
the overriding principle:  the U.S. must be loyal to the
institutions of democracy, not to Marcos.

In October, Reagan sent Senator Laxalt to Manila to tell Marcos that
changes had to be made.  Said Laxalt last week:  "He was getting
messages through State, but he just wasn't believing them."  Laxalt
told him that the Philippine army had to spend more time dealing with
the Communist insurgents.

Pressure on Marcos was also building in the U.S. Congress.  Senator
Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican and chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, who headed an official American team of poll
watchers that observed the elections, concluded that there had been
many instances of fraud, vote tampering, violence and intimidation by
Marcos partisans.  In a telephone conversation with Marcos just after
the voting, Laxalt observed that certain aspects of the elections had
been "rather strange," such as reports that Marcos had carried one
province by a vote of 13,000 to 0.  That was not a province, it was a
precinct, said Marcos,and "it was family."  When Laxalt answered, "I
doubt very much if I ran in my home district I would get all the
votes of my family," Marcos, who knew that the Senator's parents were
French Basque immigrants, replied, "Well, Filipinos are more clannish
than you independent Basques."

Washington's fear of a bloodbath was not unfounded.  Early Monday
morning a crowd of Marcos supporters armed with batons and tear gas
moved toward Camp Crame, where the reformers were gathered.  Over
transistor radios, Marcos was heard vowing, "We'll wipe them out.  It
is obvious they are committing a rebellion."  And over Radio Veritas
came Enrile's reply, "I am not going to surrender."

Tanks arrived.  When helicopters from the 15th strike wing of the air
force began circling overhead, it looked as if the reformist
rebellion was all over.  If the choppers had fired into the Enrile-
Ramos headquarters, the reformers would have been helpless.  But then
the choppers landed, and out came airmen waving white flags and
giving the "L" sign for laban (fight), a symbol of the opposition.
Suddenly the crowd, realizing that the air force was now defecting,
went wild.

Perhaps the most ominous moment came that same morning, shortly after
Marcos announced on a televised news conference that he was declaring
a state of emergency.  At that point his armed forces Chief of Staff,
General Ver, whispered to Marcos in a voice that was audible to the
whole nation, "Sir, we are ready to annihilate them at your
orders...We are left with no option but to attack."  Marcos did not
respond.  Whether he knew it or not, his failure to move swiftly
against Enrile and Ramos, one of the more honorable acts of his
tarnished presidency, had already cost him the office he was fighting
so desperately to retain.

Instead he went on with his press conference, but at 8:47 he was
interrupted in mid-sentence as the government-run television station,
Channel 4, suddenly went off the air.  When it reappeared three
hours later, the newscaster jubilantly declared, "This is the first
free broadcast of Channel 4...The people have taken over."  Beside
him was Colonel Mariano Santiago, who until last year had been the
Marcos-appointed chairman of the country's Board of Transportation.
To many Filipinos, the seizure of Channel 4 was one of the most
remarkable events of an endlessly astonishing week.

Tuesday was the day of the twin inaugurals.  Aquino had wanted a
daylight ceremony because, as she said in her address, "it is fitting
and proper that, as the rights and liberties of our people were taken
away at midnight 14 years ago [when martial law was declared], the
people should formally recover those rights and liberties in the full
light of day."  An hour later Ferdinand Marcos stepped onto the
balcony at Malacanang Palace before a crowd of 4,000 cheering
supporters and took the oath of office.  "Whatever we have before us,
we will overcome," he promised, while Imelda vowed to serve the
people "all my life up to my last breath."  Though she was choked
with emotion, few people outside the palace sensed that this was to
be the Marcoses' farewell.  Then the Marcoses sang favorite songs, at
one point offering a duet to the cheers of the invited guests.
Conspicuously absent was Marcos' Vice President, Arturo Tolentino,
who later said that he had not wanted to take the oath of office
because he hoped to play an intermediary role between Marcos and the
reformists.

An hour after the ceremony, Marcos telephoned Enrile and demanded
that he "stop firing at the palace."  Enrile said he had no troops
there.  Marcos asked him to call Ambassador Bosworth to find out if
the U.S. could provide the Marcoses with security in flying out of
the palace.  Enrile promised to do so.  Marcos had previously raised
the possibility of retiring to Ilocos Norte, his home province in the
northern Philippines, but had been discouraged from doing so by his
family and by the new government.  At 9:05 p.m., four American
helicopters picked up the President, Imelda and a contingent of
relatives and aides, including General Ver, and flew them to the U.S.
air base.

As the week ended, Reagan Administration policymakers breathed a
great sign of relief that their plans and strategies, so
painstakingly worked out over the past two years, had gone so well.
Both Republicans and Democrats praised the handling of the Philippine
crisis.  Officials counted themselves incredibly lucky.  Noting that
events had passed without appreciable bloodshed, a senior U.S.
official in Washington ruefully remarked that the Lord surely looks
after "fools, children, the Philippines and the U.S.A."

After its initial concern about how the inexperienced Corazon Aquino
would fare as President, the Administration was relieved that she
gave important jobs to Laurel, Enrile, Ramos and other centrists, and
adopted so conciliatory a tone toward her former opponents.  Already
there were hints of trouble ahead over the Marcoses' relocation,
whether they decided to settle in Hawaii, California, New York or
elsewhere, and over the legal status of Marcos' properties abroad.
Though Marcos' only known income was his presidential salary of
$5,700 a year, the Central Intelligence Agency has reportedly
estimated the value of his family's worldwide holdings at perhaps $2
billion.  New York's Democratic Congressman Stephen Solarz observed
mildly last week, "There is a strong presumption that he had a very
good financial adviser or acquired the millions of dollars he has
through presumptively improper means."  Aboard the plane that carried
Marcos to Hawaii, federal authorities found $1.2 million in
Philippine currency, and another planeload of Marcos' personal
effects arrived at week's end.  Solarz said that while he thought it
was appropriate for Reagan to offer Marcos sanctuary, the President
had certainly not offered Marcos "immunity against civil proceedings
brought by the government of the Philippines to recover a fortune
stolen from the Philippines."

But for the moment the Administration was relieved to have passed the
center of the storm.  Even as he praised Marcos for his "difficult
and courageous decision" to step down, Reagan congratulated Aquino on
the "democratic outcome" of the elections and promised to work
closely with her government in rebuilding the Philippine economy and
armed forces.

--By William E. Smith.
  Reported by Sandra Burton/Manila, and Johanna McGeary and William
  Steward/Washington