Leave It to the People

From Y'Ami to Tawitawi, the 1,200-mile-long Philippine archipelago resounded for two months with politicians' haranguing voices, but the nation's No. 1 grassroots campaigner, the man who had most at stake in last week's off-presidential-year election, made only two major speeches. "I want to see if the people will fight my battle for me," said President Ramon Magsaysay.

At stake were nine seats in the Philippine Senate, all elected from the nation at large. But interest centered largely on one man: Senator Claro Recto, power-hungry politician, brilliant trial lawyer and wartime Foreign Minister during the Japanese occupation. For a long time

Claro Recto was regarded as one of the most powerful men in the Senate, until he tangled with Magsaysay and Magsaysay's policy of friendly cooperation with the U.S. Recto was once a big power in Magsaysay's own Nacionalista Party, but this year he was specifically eliminated from the party slate at Magsaysay's insistence. Senator Recto found a berth on the Liberal slate as a "guest candidate," and set off to barnstorm against his President, whom he called a "dictator" and a "U.S. puppet." Two nights before the election, in a speech at the Manila Harvard Club, he dramatically proclaimed that "Magsaysayism" was the Filipino counterpart of McCarthyism.

On election day Claro Recto got his answer. Magsaysay's ticket swept all before it. Senator Recto finished in sixth place, and though he thus was returned to the Senate, he was clearly repudiated as an effective opponent to Magsaysay.

Heading the senatorial list with 2,500,000 votes, more than ever polled before by a senatorial candidate, was a comely, 38-year-old widow named Pacita Madrigal Warns, who quit her ballet school to head the Women for Magsaysay Movement two years ago. When Magsaysay appointed her to his Cabinet as Commissioner of Social Welfare, she converted her election workers into a volunteer social-workers corps. The daughter of Multimillionaire Vicente Madrigal, onetime Liberal Senator, she campaigned widely with the slogan "For the poor, vote Pacita for Senator."

Seven other Nacionalista Senators were elected, as the Nacionalista triumphs were just as sweeping in local races, particularly in rural areas. Happy victor Ramon Magsaysay drew a moral: "Don't underestimate the farmer. He's usually two jumps ahead of the politician."

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