Rolling Out His Own Red Carpet

By Mayo Mohs

Carefully setting the stage for a U.S. visit

It will be his first visit to Washington since he called on Lyndon Johnson in 1966, and Philippines President Ferdinand E. Marcos is determined that everything will be perfect. He appointed his brother-in-law, Benjamin Romualdez, as Ambassador to Washington expressly to handle the U.S. trip. In recent weeks, Manila's leading corporations and advertising agencies have dispatched their top public relations executives to convince the skeptical U.S. media that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, who are scheduled to set foot on the White House lawn this week, are just about the best friends that Washington has in Asia.

Crucial friends to be sure: Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base, the major U.S. military facilities in the Philippines, are vital staging areas for forces in the Pacific, a point that Imelda Marcos delights in driving home. "The Americans need us more than we need them," she told TIME. "They don't realize that if they lose their last bastion in the Pacific, they cannot be a superpower here. We will not allow the U.S. to treat us shabbily." President Ronald Reagan, who has down-played human rights issues since taking office, is exempt from that resentment. "I am a fan of President Reagan," the Philippine First Lady says. "He has gotten back the credibility, prestige and friendship that America had lost."

Marcos has taken pains to demonstrate his own credibility as a man clearly in command. Briskly settling affairs at home before his departure, he has moved sharply against alleged opponents and buttressed his regime with a succession plan that already bears the marks of a dynasty. At his prodding, the Philippine legislature last week approved a law clarifying constitutional provisions for a 15-member Executive Committee that would succeed him in the event of his death or disability. Last month Marcos appointed his wife to a spot on the new Executive Committee, thus entrenching her as the most likely person to dominate it and--though he denies it--perhaps even to emerge as President. Yet Marcos reinforced speculation about his health by checking into a hospital for two days for pneumonitis (incipient pneumonia) just after telling a press conference that he had come through a checkup "with flying colors."

Marcos' health has not prevented him from dealing swiftly and harshly with those he identifies as either political enemies or common criminals. Charging that labor unionists and radicals, with the support of some businessmen and political opponents, were plotting a general strike, bombings and assassinations to disrupt his U.S. visit, he ordered the arrests of more than 80 suspects, including a 79-year-old labor leader. In a draconian crackdown on street crime, he assigned a thousand "secret marshals" to ride, toting machine pistols, on Manila's often attacked Jeepneys. Within a week the marshals had killed 41 alleged criminals and captured only six. Said disgusted Civil Liberties Lawyer Jose Diokno, one of Marcos' severest critics: "The crackdown is directly related to the U.S. visit. Marcos is creating an atmosphere of fear to intimidate his opponents." The effort apparently succeeded. The climate in Manila was peaceful last week, and large demonstrations promised by the opposition failed to materialize.

Even though Marcos claims that he has "no intention of asking [President Reagan] for anything,," U.S. officials know that one of Marcos' eventual goals is to raise the rent on the Clark and Subic bases. A 1979 agreement guarantees the bases' status until 1984, with generous U.S. compensation: $50 million in U.S. military sales credits and another $50 million in the form of an AID economic support fund to help pay for schools, roads and other projects in the provinces around Clark and Subic. AID provides $60 million, unrelated to the bases, in grants and soft loans for programs such as rural development and family planning. One way Filipinos hope to up the U.S. ante: preferential trade concessions that would enable the Philippines to export to the U.S. market more of its products, like sugar. The Philippines needs all the help it can get. Although the country is potentially rich in agricultural and mineral resources, it has been severely hurt by falling prices for its raw-material exports and heavy bills for imported oil.

One of the few seriously heeded voices among Marcos' critics is that of Manila's Jaime Cardinal Sin. When he suggested that it was time for Marcos to step down, a presidential lieutenant attacked him in the pro-government press as a "Khomeini." The charge, Cardinal Sin said gleefully, backfired. "The people said, If there's a Khomeini, there must be a Shah.'"

Other Marcos critics, not insulated by the church's privileged position, are depressed about the country's future. They see scant chance for the success of any moderate opposition to Marcos. Laments Salvador Laurel, son of a former President and one of the few opposition members in the rubber-stamp legislature: "We're fast becoming irrelevant. We can't participate in elections, because there's no real and honest election in sight. But we won't resort to violence, so we're losing out to the radicals."

The "radicals" range from militant priests and nuns to the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The N.P.A. is gaining ground, up this past year from a cadre of 6,000 "active elements," as the Philippine army calls them, to an estimated 7,700--a modest gain but the only one in the non-Communist nations of Asia. The Communists are less an immediate threat than a sign of increasing restlessness in a frustrated nation.

Despite the years of martial law from 1972 to 1981, despite the political chaos that has punctuated the Philippines' brief history as a democracy, its people have a strong attachment to the democratic principles they learned from their American colonial tutors; a loyalty they demonstrated by laying down a million of their lives as both combatants and victims in the war against Japan. Marcos cites that sacrifice often, and he is right to do so; the U.S. owes the Philippines much.

-- By Mayo Mohs.

Reported by Ross H. Munro/Manila

With reporting by Ross H. Munro

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