Cleanup in Manila

For no nation does the U.S. feel such direct responsibility as for the 14-year-old Philippine Republic. A half-century of U.S. colonial tutelage, generously administered and gracefully relinquished, has left the Philippines a heritage of universal suffrage, widespread education, press freedom, managerial know-how, and a dedication both to the higher principles and some of the lower practices of American democracy.

This week, as President Dwight Eisenhower flew to Manila, he found the administration engaged in an activity familiar to machine politicians in any imperfect democracy: it was frantically trying to clean house before it faced the voters.

Easier in the Afternoon. Reform did not come naturally to President Carlos Garcia. When he took over after the death of able, incorruptible Ramon Magsaysay in 1957, Garcia's regime became conspicuous chiefly for its influence peddling, nepotism and economic mismanagement. Last fall, after losing off-year senatorial elections in the cities even though his Nacionalistas bought a majority in the countryside, Garcia awoke to the fact that government corruption had been the major popular issue against him, shrewdly concluded that he had better change his party's ways before the 1961 presidential elections. "Nothing less than a total war against corruption will satisfy our people,'' announced the new Garcia--and fired four of his Cabinet ministers. Then he summoned Economist Dominador (Dom) Ay-tona, 42, a onetime schoolmaster who had graduated summa cum laude from Manila University and served as Magsaysay's budget commissioner. "What do you think about graft and corruption?" he asked. When Aytona bluntly replied that reform was necessary, Garcia named him Secretary of Finance, in charge of customs, internal revenue and import licensing--the three major areas of political gravy.

In his four months in office, Dom Aytona has fired 60 department underlings, brought corruption charges against 90 more and started investigations of 400 others. He found one tax examiner whose income rose $40,000 in a year, a customs inspector who reported and charged duty on only 100 lbs. of a 20,000-lb shipment of watermelon seeds. He warned ministry employees to stay away from race tracks, cockpits, casinos and especially Manila's thriving new "dayclubs," a collection of cabarets complete with B-girls catering to men who found it easier to get away from their jobs in the afternoon than their wives at night. Officials who frequent such places, said Aytona, "give the impression that they are morally weak, carefree, and are spending money beyond their legiti mate earnings."

Changing the Climate. Aytona's drive has already boosted tax and customs rev enues by 20% over last year, and he is now trying to change tax laws to catch wealthy tax dodgers who, he claims, cheat ed the government of $65 million last year -- enough to pay for a year's educa tion for 1,000,000 Filipino children. His biggest reform was to institute a "con trolled decontrol" of the peso designed to create a free currency market within four years. Under his new regulations, import ers of "essential goods" get their dollars at more favorable rates than those who bring in Cadillacs and air conditioners.

Already the Philippines' foreign ex change reserves have been built up to a healthy $180 million, and Aytona hopes that his cleanup will lure back U.S. in vestors, who have been so leary of the Garcia climate of investment that they did not put a single new dollar into the islands last year. Though he says he has only scratched the top of the dirt, Ayto na's work has silenced Garcia's politi cal opponents, and there is some talk that Garcia plans to select him as his vice-presidential running mate in 1961.

With his household in somewhat better order, and the country looking eagerly for some new tender of U.S. financial aid, President Garcia this week prepared to give Ike "the biggest and warmest welcome in the history of our country." The handshakes would be for Garcia, but the admiration would go mainly to that rising young Filipino, Dominador Aytona.

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