TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/100989/10098900.015

Text File | 1990-09-18 | 6KB | 114 lines

WORLD, Page 52

THE PHILIPPINES

From Despot to Exile

In death as in life, Ferdinand Marcos stirs his homeland

By Howard G. Chua-Eoan


    Fallen dictators age badly, even in Hawaii. Toward the end,
Ferdinand Marcos, once overlord of the Philippines, had become a
joke. He mumbled that he was living on charity, but visitors to
his rented $2.5 million residence outside Honolulu saw the dozen
servants, the 30 bodyguards and the chauffeured limousine. His wife
Imelda was a regular at posh local shops and every now and then
gave in to the temptation to show off her finery -- except for new
shoes.

    His eyes disappearing into puffy cheeks, a cervical collar ever
at his neck, Marcos insisted he was too sick to travel to New York
City for arraignment on charges of racketeering and real estate
fraud. Still, he argued he was up to a trip to the Philippines,
ready to win back his kingdom in MacArthurian style. Hawaii, Marcos
proclaimed, was only his Elba. Everyone else knew it was St.
Helena.

    His last attempts at manipulation were unwitting acts in a
black comedy. When his mother died in Manila, Marcos refused to
give permission for her burial, using her corpse to prod the
government of Corazon Aquino into allowing him to return to mourn.
He was turned down. In December 1988 a physician testing the
deposed President's fitness to travel to New York said Marcos faked
pains. A week later, when Marcos was hospitalized with congestive
heart failure, many scoffed. As if to spite his critics, Marcos
became truly ill and died last week at 72. Imelda once said she
might refuse to bury him unless Manila allowed her to bring the
corpse home. But though Aquino had flags lowered to half-staff, she
reiterated that Marcos, even in death, would remain an exile for
an unspecified time. As Philippine forces girded for protests by
Marcos loyalists, Washington banned planes from flying his remains
to the islands.

    At the zenith of his power, in 1981, Marcos said his country
was caught between "a world that was dead and a world that was too
feeble to be born." The vision that he alone could lead it to
prosperity and greatness proved painfully illusory. He died his
country's greatest villain.

    Marcos could easily have been a hero. When he was first elected
President of the Philippines, in November 1965, he had history
within his grasp. His uncommon combination of political shrewdness
and ironfisted determination gave a strong measure of national
identity to the fractious Southeast Asian archipelago. Encountering
minimal opposition when he took on dictatorial powers in 1972,
Marcos thoroughly reordered Philippine economic and political life,
impressing both his people and his key ally, the U.S., with his
irreplaceability in one of the most strategic corridors of the
world.

    Deliberately patterning their life-style on John Kennedy's
Camelot, Marcos and his wife enthralled most Filipinos when he
initially took office. He also set about fulfilling his campaign
promises of reforms in industry and education. But by his second
term, in January 1970, the tide had begun to turn against the
brilliant young President. Protesting the country's economic
inequities, militant anti-American students pelted the Marcoses
with rocks and bottles, forcing the couple to bolt themselves
inside Malacanang Palace for their own security.

    In September 1972 Marcos imposed martial law, citing the
growing strength of the Communist New People's Army (N.P.A.) and
the collapse of public order, some of which he may have
orchestrated. In a meticulously executed crackdown, thousands of
students, journalists, labor leaders and politicians were arrested.
The government shut down the press and confiscated all firearms.
Marcos then set the country on a forced march toward what he called
the New Society.

    One-man rule had its salutary effects. Inflation dropped, and
government revenue increased. If Marcos had dismantled martial law
by 1977, said his former Defense Chief Juan Ponce Enrile later,
"he would have been enshrined as the best President the country
ever had." Marcos, however, decided to hold on to absolute power
and legitimized it as "constitutional authoritarianism."

    With rising hubris, Marcos tailored Philippine politics to fit
his needs even as the Treasury was slowly siphoned into his secret
Swiss bank accounts. With the loyalty of a military that kept his
enemies under control through detention, torture and murder, the
President sat confidently in Malacanang, turning down all calls for
democracy with pedantic arguments and withering hauteur. Marcos,
said Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila, "believes he is the
only intelligent human being in the world."

    The beginning of the end came in August 1983 with the
assassination of Marcos' rival, Benigno Aquino. Marcos blamed the
N.P.A., which had prospered during his dictatorship, but few
Filipinos believed him. Public protests blossomed.

    In November 1985, in a ploy to satisfy U.S. demands for the
reinstatement of democracy, Marcos announced an election, confident
he could still win. It was a stunning miscalculation. Marcos
counted on the inability of the opposition to unite under a single
candidate. Instead, his foes -- and the powerful Roman Catholic
Church -- coalesced under Aquino's widow Corazon. The President's
blatant attempts to steal the election stirred reform elements in
the military and the public into the decade's first great exercise
of People Power. With large elements of the military defecting,
Marcos was effectively trapped within Malacanang, besieged by
civilian mobs and air-force rocket attacks. Three days after the
rebellion broke out, on Feb. 24, 1986, his family was evacuated by
U.S. helicopters. Within 48 hours, Marcos was in Hawaii.

    Six years before that ignominious flight, Marcos seemed to
glimpse how his own downfall would come about. During a visit to
Honolulu, he delivered a telling analysis of the decline of
Presidents. "I do not care how brave a President is; I do not care
how many medals he may wear," said he. "I do not care how well
trained his guards may be. If he violates the will of the people,
he shall be eliminated."