Filipino pressure
Philip Jacobson
Manila
Some attribute it to powerful new drugs, others to a remarkable triumph of mind over matter. The truth probably lies somewhere in between, but nobody in the Philippines today can doubt that Ferdinand Marcos is back in business, dominating his troubled country with the familiar blend of charisma, hard cash and unsubtle menace. Barely a month after the elections in which the opposition to his ruling New Society movement made impressive gains despite breathtaking vote-rigging by the govern- ment, President Marcos has served notice that he has no intention of retreating from his autocratic, highly personal style of leadership. Winding up a pugnacious In- dependence Day message to the nation from the ornate ballroom at the Malacanang Place, Marcos scoffed at op- Position demands for a coalition to save the nation, assuring Filipinos that 'our time of greatest danger is long past'. Yet by almost any standards, the Philip- Pines is falling apart. The peso has just been devalued against the US dollar for the third time in 12 months. Inflation has risen above 50 per cent, unemployment soars every Month. The International Monetary Fund's accountants are in town to run their hard eyes over the government's urgent request for a restructuring of its vast foreign debts (now approximately $26 billion). The social tensions generated by an apparently unstoppable slide into poverty have been sharpened by the still unsolved assassina- tion of the opposition leader Benigno Aquino and the blatant bribery and in- timidation the regime used to fix the recent polls.
Nobody understands ordinary Filipinos better than Marcos, but he hardly gives the impression of a man under pressure. At a press conference following the Indepen- dence Day ceremonies, also shown live on television, the President cleverly got his retaliation in against those whom he now routinely describes as 'Lying Foreign Cor- respondents'. We had been asked to turn UP in formal suits or a Filipino barong, the long, embroidered shirt worn outside the trousers. The choice lay between suffering damply under the arc lights or appearing faintly ridiculous in an outfit designed for men smaller and slimmer than the average
Western journalist. Sitting bolt upright in his gilded high chair, Marcos looked on with evident relish as a series of uncomfor- table LFCs were summoned forward to ask their questions before the TV cameras.
It was an unequal contest, Marcos displaying all his old flair for playing to the Filipino gallery. Someone asked why he was holding so many press conferences these days. 'Look what happened when I was trying to keep a low profile — you people went around telling everyone that I was dy- ing.' What had the President, a noted guer- rilla fighter in his day, to say about reports that the left-wing New People's Army was becoming bolder in its campaign to over- throw his regime? 'My friend, I think I know more about guerrilla warfare in this country than you. The NPA is adopting conventional tactics, which will be fatal because, I can tell you, once you carry too much and move too slowly, you're in trouble.'
The absence of Imelda Marcos, widely held to have been the opposition's best elec- tion asset, from the three rows of govern- ment ministers present was brought up: would the First Lady be keeping her important post in the new cabinet? 'If you ask her, she'll probably say, I hope not'. At the end of the proceedings, Marcos himself asked and answered a question he had clearly been expecting. There is con- siderable argument in the Philippines at present about the legality of the special powers the President gave himself to rule by personal decree. The government's line is that the constitution of France, original model for that of the Philippines, provides similar powers for the President. At his right hand, Marcos has a large, dog-eared copy of the French constitution: for the `I have this dream of appearing on the Centre Court at Wimbledon.' next ten minutes (still on television) he meandered through a variety of articles, clauses and sub-clauses to support the case for the suppression of democracy, while His Excellency the French Ambassador, seated in the front row of the diplomatic corps, did his best to appear disinterested.
For all the rising discontent, few Filipinos expect another explosion of popular anger against the regime to mark the first anniver- sary of Aquino's murder in August. The Agrava commission investigating the affair should have delivered its verdict by then.
But although its hearings have shredded the Marcos version of events — a lone Com- munist hitman shooting Aquino on the air- port tarmac before being killed by security men — it would be expecting a great deal for the commission to point a finger at where virtually every Filipino believes the assassination plot originated: the high com- mand of the armed forces, only a hair's breadth from the Palace itself. In any case, opposition leaders argue, the people have already delivered their own verdict with their votes against the regime.
Far more threatening for Marcos and the cronies who have enjoyed a ride on the gravy train is the growing bleakness with which many ordinary Filipinos view their future. One detects the beginning of a sullen, slow-burning sense of outrage at the way their rulers have betrayed and exploited them to such vast profit. After almost two decades of Marcos and the New Society, of the First Lady's grandiose projects at the Ministry of Human Settlements, seven out of every ten households in the Philippines have now slipped below the official poverty line (which means a very hard life indeed).
As this has taken place, the rich have grown so much richer that the proportion of fami- ly income enjoyed by those in the most af- fluent bracket has doubled. Almost half the wealth of the nation is now in the hands of less than 13 per cent of the population.
Strong-armed by the IMF, Marcos has been obliged to announce yet another package of what international bureaucrats like to call austerity measures, certain to raise prices of many basic foodstuffs for those who already find it hard to afford sugar, flour, milk, even rice. Significantly, on the night that Marcos delivered the bad news, all police and military units in the capital were put on red alert, with check- points springing up on key roads and around important installations. The official explanation was, as usual, 'Communist plots', but the regime clearly feared another surge of violent protest in the streets.
It has not come to that yet, but the bit- terness among the have-nots of the Philip- pines is mounting every day. There is real hunger among the poor in the larger cities, above all Manila, with its teeming slums. At a luncheon attended by Imelda Marcos recently, after the well-dressed guests had tucked in, a swarm of bodyguards, police outriders, television technicians and minor functionaries could be seen jostling for the remains of the buffet, snatching up stale bread rolls to take home to their families.
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