Garcia Gets Ready

Among the good friends of the Philippines' late President Ramon Magsaysay was Jesus Vargas, a burly, outspoken career officer who rose through the ranks to become the Philippine Republic's first three-star general. Vargas, 54, won his countrymen's respect for his ability, honesty and stubborn determination to keep the Filipino army out of politics. Last week these virtues cost General Vargas his job as Philippine Defense Secretary.

Behind Vargas' enforced resignation lay President Carlos Garcia's well-justified nervousness about next fall's Philippine senatorial elections. In the two years since Magsaysay's death in a plane crash elevated him to the presidency, high-living Carlos Garcia has become identified with economic mismanagement and governmental corruption; in the Philippine Senate last week a member of Garcia's own Nacionalista Party charged that 16 of the President's intimates, including his son-in-law and two of his brothers, had engaged in large-scale influence peddling. If General Vargas used the army to enforce an honest election--as he had done in two previous elections--the Nacionalista Party's prospects might be dimmer.

To replace Vargas as Defense Secretary, Garcia named Alejo Santos, a ruthless political operator, who piously announced that his goal as Defense Secretary would be to "uphold civilian supremacy over the military."

The 50-year-old independent weekly newsmagazine Philippines Free Press declared last week that "there is more grafting and thieving in our government today than there ever was in previous administrations, from that of Manuel Quezon to Ramon Magsaysay. Compared to the callous and venal officials we have nowadays, those that infested the [1948-53 Quirino administration] were clumsy amateurs."

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