Marcos Cuts the Corners

Our people have come to a point of despair. Justice and security are as myths. Our government is gripped in the iron hand of venality, its treasury is barren, its resources are wasted, its civil service slothful and indifferent. Not one hero alone do I ask, but many.

EVIDENTLY Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has changed his mind since he made that bold-sounding call for reform in his 1966 inaugural address. Instead of waiting for "many heroes," he has decided that the multiple ills that still beset his country can be cured by one only: Ferdinand Marcos. Within days after his sudden imposition of martial law to deal with a supposed threat of "Communist subversion" (TIME, Oct. 2), Marcos last week had begun to transform his island nation of 38 million from a raucous, imperfect democracy into what looked like a strongman government on the model of South Korea.

As Filipinos calmly observed a mid-night-to-4 a.m. curfew, military camps outside Manila began to fill with detainees picked up by Marcos' police on charges ranging from smuggling and tax evasion to "giving aid and comfort" to Communist subversives. By week's end there were 98 in the camps, among them three Senators, three Representatives and at least ten prominent journalists. Elementary schools began to reopen, but university campuses remained closed, as were all but two of Manila's 15 newspapers, five of its twelve radio stations, and one of its seven television stations. The media that were left were reliably pro-Marcos. The tabloid Sunday Express reassuringly cooed CIVILIAN GOVERNMENT STILL FUNCTIONS; NO MILITARY TAKEOVER. The President went on TV to explain his drastic measures ("We are falling back on the last line of defense") and to make vague promises of a "new society."

To judge by Marcos' moves last week, that society is to be the product of an improbable mix of needed populist reforms and a crackdown on public mores and morals that might do Greece's ruling colonels proud. On the needed-reforms side, Marcos announced programs to curb inflation (running at 18% in recent months), tax evasion and smuggling; fire corrupt judges; disarm the private armies maintained by rural warlords; prohibit minor functionaries like customs officers from carrying guns; and "give the peasant what is his due" in a sweeping and overdue land-reform program that will allow tenant farmers to purchase their land with government assistance. Marcos summarily yanked 450 "notoriously undesirable" workers off the swollen civil service payroll; 400,000 others, ranging from customs clerks to Cabinet secretaries, were ordered to turn in their resignations pending a massive government reorganization.