The Philippines: Running Wild in the Streets

As riots spread, Marcos cracks down and warns of worse to come

For Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, Sept. 21 is normally a festive occasion, the annual Day of National Thanksgiving honoring the imposition of martial law in 1972. But the 200,000 demonstrators gathered in Manila's Post Office Square last Wednesday were commemorating another event: the unexplained assassination exactly one month earlier of opposition leader Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino Jr. The throng shouted antigovernment slogans and cheered as speaker after speaker called on Marcos, 66, to resign after 17 years of rule. The rally ended peacefully in the late afternoon, but by evening things had turned ugly. Several thousand angry students and left-wing militants converged on Mendiola Bridge, site of violent clashes 13 years ago, where they encountered a phalanx of riot police. In the ensuing battle, ten people died, about 200 were wounded, and scores were arrested.

As cooler heads sought to open a dialogue between the beleaguered President and his moderate opponents, the spreading turmoil raised fears that events were veering dangerously out of control. The galvanizing shock of Aquino's murder had produced a national outpouring of anti-Marcos sentiment; opposition leaders vowed that the protests would continue until democracy is restored; an official investigation into the killing had ground to a halt; the country was mired in its worst economic crisis since Marcos came to power. While the challenges mounted, Marcos stiffened; at one point he even implicitly threatened to reimpose martial law. "Do not force my hand," he warned in a nationally televised speech. "Do not compel me to move into the extreme measures that you know of."

The unrest prompted some serious soul searching in Washington. President Reagan is expected to stop in the Philippines during a five-nation swing through East Asia now scheduled for Nov. 2 to Nov. 16. The chaotic aftermath of Aquino's death, however, has raised questions about Reagan's personal safety during the visit, and about the political wisdom of appearing to endorse the faltering and increasingly unpopular Marcos. White House planners canceled the outdoor events on the President's proposed agenda in the Philippines, and they also reduced the duration of his visit from two nights to one. But they stopped short of canceling the trip, partly for fear of jeopardizing the strategic U.S. military facilities in the Philippines: Clark Air Base, 50 miles north of Manila, and the big naval facility at (Subic Bay. "As of this moment," said State Department Spokesman John Hughes late last week, stressing the qualification, "he is going."

The week began peacefully enough in Manila. The government had purposely avoided head-on confrontation with opposition demonstrators and had even tried to steal some of their thunder by staging a rally of its own in Makati, Metro Manila's financial district. A special bulletin signed by the vice governor of the Metropolitan Manila Commission (Imelda Marcos, the President's powerful, unpopular wife, is the governor) was distributed to commission employees. "Attendance is a must," it decreed. "Record of attendance must be submitted to personnel management .. . Do not wear uniforms."