A Call on the Princess

THE PHILIPPINES

I'll be a humble beggar, whilst you are a princess pure;

Laugh at me if you desire, yet my love will endure.

-- Diosdado Macapagal

The poet-President of the Philippine Republic was due to arrive in Washington this week, bringing assurances of enduring love for the U.S. and a humble request for more American aid. And even though few Filipinos still consider the U.S. "a princess pure," neither do they expect Diosdado Macapagal's desires to be laughed at. Nor would they be -- for in all of seething Southeast Asia, the Philippine Republic is the only politically stable democracy unthreatened by Communism or coup d'etat.

Hamstrung in Court. Refreshingly, Macapagal and Lyndon Johnson have no great crises to resolve. They would sign a few prearranged agreements, renew old friendships, and for Macapagal the two days in Washington would have the added advantage of bolstering his prestige at home. For he faces a tough battle for re-election next year.

In the three years since his Liberal Party upset the graft-ridden Nacionalista regime of Carlos Garcia, Macapagal has tried to create a "New Era" in the Philippines. He eliminated corruption in the higher reaches of government, stabilized the peso, passed a much needed land-reform bill to break up the vast estates that date from the days of Spanish rule (1565-1898).

But Macapagal is hamstrung by the Philippine Supreme Court, which has reversed him nine times, and by an opposition-dominated Senate. Many of his reforms have been denied the appropriations necessary to make them work. More erosive to his chances for re-election is Macapagal's own personality--or lack of it. Volatile Filipinos want a volatile leader, like peppery Ramon Magsaysay, who was killed in a plane crash seven years ago. Diosdado (Spanish for "God-given") Macapagal, at 54, is well-meaning but dour, a self-proclaimed "poor boy" from the distant provinces who prefers conservative business suits to the cool, frilly barong tagalog sport shirt favored by Manila sports and Magsaysay.

Polo & Headhunting. Macapagal's nation, after 18 years of independence, is an odd admixture of Spanish and American cultures. Crew-cut kids in pastel hot-rods drag for beers along Manila's broad, sleepy Roxas Boulevard. In the back streets, men smoking fat, green cigars bet on cockfights and hard-fought jai alai matches. One church has "Ave Maria" picked out in electric lights above the door. Manila's eleven daily newspapers (six in English) crackle with scare headlines reporting the latest murders, rapes and pirate raids (which still occur at a rate of one a week, conducted by Moros in motorized sailboats armed with modern weapons). In the back pages of the papers dwell Buck Rogers, Peanuts and the pistol ads. More than 25,000 weapons were left in the islands after World War II; they were not "enough for the 31 million Filipinos, most of whom prefer to go armed. Last year one act of violence was attempted every hour--ranging from murder to mere assault. And Philippine courts are still trying some of the many murder cases that resulted from 1961's election campaign.

Much of the Philippines' violence rises from the chasm of poverty that separates rich and poor. Though the 7,100 islands of the republic are rich in natural resources (gold and copper on Luzon, iron on Samar, chromite on Mindanao) and fecund with such crops as tobacco, sugar, corn and rice, average Filipino income is only $120 a year. Fully 6% of the population is unemployed, and a third of all Filipinos work only three months a year. Manila's wealthy suburb of Forbes Park glitters with swimming pools, but children starve to death regularly in the shack towns along the Sulu Sea. Daughters of wealthy Manila socialites sport names like "Ting-Ting" and take ballet lessons, while at an annual festival at Obando, childless women perform a rhythmic fertility dance coaxing the saints to help them conceive. Polo is played in Manila, but headhunting is occasionally still the game in the wild, distant mountains of northern Luzon.

Placards & Rifle Butts. Politics in the Philippines shows exaggerated hostility too, and Romantic Poet Macapagal finds it difficult to match the flip philippics of his opponents. Already he is swapping invective with the Nacionalistas, although election day is not due until November 1965, and the opposition has yet to select a candidate. Two of the chief contenders for the nomination are former Liberal Party members--Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez and Senate President Ferdinand Marcos--both of whom broke from Diosdado Macapagal after his triumphant election. They are well aware that, until now, not one Philippine President has managed to serve two full terms.

On the eve of Macapagal's departure for Washington, 500 students and union members carrying bamboo torches and placards reading "Ugly American" marched to Malacanang Palace, the Philippine White House. They noisily demanded abrogation of a U.S.-Philippine trade agreement that gives American interests parity in the ownership of Filipino land, resources and public utilities. But the agreement also grants the Philippines tariff advantages in its trade with the U.S., and Macapagal is wisely avoiding any battle on that score. When the demonstrators grew violent, presidential guards drove them back with rifle butts, and Macapagal admitted a delegation of student leaders to hear out their gripes. The students eventually apologized, and Macapagal shook hands and thanked them for coming but said that next time they should make an appointment in advance. But for all the strident show of anti-Americanism, the student demonstration was a far cry from what it might have been in Indonesia, Cambodia or South Viet Nam. As one near-hysterical Filipino shouted at the height of the melee: "Isn't this democracy in action?"

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