The Philippines Marcos Seizes the Offensive

By Jill Smolowe.

Ferdinand Marcos may be down and he may be out, but he is hardly ready to be consigned to the history books just yet. Last week the ousted President of the Philippines and his supporters sought to seize the offensive by both word and deed. From his exile in Hawaii, Marcos in an interview with TIME boldly charged a direct American role in a "conspiracy for a coup d'etat" that he claimed was quashed by loyal forces before he fled the Philippines on Feb. 26. In interviews with a Manila radio station, the former dictator also reversed his calls of just a week earlier to support President Corazon Aquino and exhorted followers to agitate against the new government. Coming after three days of mounting antigovernment activity in the Manila area, the broadcast aroused speculation that Marcos himself was playing a role in the events.

At his modestly furnished beachfront home in Honolulu, Marcos had a two- hour interview with TIME. During the session he indicated that he is rapidly regaining confidence as he emerges from a period of isolation and depression that followed his expulsion from power. While qualifying his remarks with expressions of gratitude to his American hosts for granting him asylum, the former leader insisted that he had intelligence reports indicating that "some Americans had helped in the preparation of the coup." He continued: "We cannot confirm it, but it included plans to assassinate both the First Lady and me."

Marcos charged that the U.S. State Department had dispatched a "special team" to the Philippines as early as last December to help some groups in the Philippines prepare a coup attempt. He said the plotters' preparations included the importing of equipment and arms through the intercession of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile. Marcos claimed that the coup was discovered just before the Feb. 7 election, and "we planted several of our officers inside, so we got all the details." It was subsequently aborted, he said, "because we immediately dispersed all the units that were commanded by their people." On Feb. 22, Enrile and his vice chief of staff, General Fidel Ramos, barricaded themselves inside the defense ministry and threw their support to the Aquino camp.

The Reagan Administration vigorously denied that it had played any part in the coup. A U.S. State Department official, responding to the charge that the U.S. and Enrile had plotted to overthrow Marcos, unleashed a single expletive that he later softened to "Balderdash!"

Warming to his anti-American theme, Marcos repeated charges that U.S. officials in Manila deceived him about his destination when they persuaded him to leave the presidential Malacanang Palace. He thought he was headed for his home province of Ilocos Norte, only to find himself being taken first to Guam and then to Hawaii instead.

Marcos vehemently denied that he and his 88-member entourage had intended to remove substantial amounts of cash and valuables from the Philippines. "We did not bring this money into the U.S. They (U.S. officials in Manila) were the ones who brought it," he said. "All the goods were taken from the palace by boat to the Army and Navy Club and then to the (U.S.) embassy, where they were ransacked." He suggested that the same officials were responsible for loading the bounty, which was later seized by U.S. Customs Service officials in Hawaii, onto American cargo planes. Philippine authorities charged last ; week that Marcos had fled with 36 suitcases and crates filled with more than $100 million in cash, diamonds and gold.

Although he acknowledged making some errors, Marcos laid most of the blame for his political demise on Washington. "I am afraid that there is factionalism in the bureaucracy of the U.S. Government," he asserted. "It happens that those who are against me won out." He was less critical, however, of the man who had assured him safe passage to the U.S. "President Reagan," he said, "may have been misled." Marcos also vented his anger against the U.S. media. Claiming that there is no evidence to support charges that he and his wife Imelda own nearly $300 million worth of New York City real estate, he said bitterly, "The U.S. has become a country of trial by publicity. The fairness and justice that I have been impressed about in the U.S. are slowly disappearing."

Later, during lunch, Marcos and his wife relaxed and even joked. At one point the former First Lady gently needled her husband. "You look like a clerk," she quipped when Marcos removed his jacket and vest in the sultry afternoon heat. "That's better than looking jobless," the ostracized couple then said in unison. Mrs. Marcos also hearkened back to her now infamous collection of shoes. "The maid assures me there were not 3,000 pairs," she said. She then summoned the woman, who dutifully testified that the First Lady's wardrobe included only 200 pairs of shoes. Mrs. Marcos revised the estimate upward: "Five hundred pairs, but not more."

As the Marcoses struggled in Hawaii to set their version of the record straight, loyalist forces took to the streets in the Philippines, chanting, "Marcos! Marcos still!" According to intelligence reports, a series of recent demonstrations, including a large rally early last week at Manila's Rizal Park, were bankrolled by officers loyal to Marcos who offered Filipinos from $5 to $10 to attend. The following day, 93 of the 177 elected members of the 200-seat National Assembly abolished by Aquino held a session in which they declared that they were reopening the defunct parliament. Marcos' vice- presidential running mate, Arturo Tolentino, had been proclaimed vice president during the Rizal Park rally and vowed to take his oath "within six months," thus becoming acting President in Marcos' absence. The accelerating agitation brought a warning from Enrile that Marcos loyalists and forces of the left were out to overthrow the Aquino government.

For his part, Marcos seemed determined to fan the flames of unrest by stepping up phone calls to the news media in Manila. Whereas in the TIME interview he decried any action that might trigger a civil war in the Philippines, he told a radio audience last week, "We shall return. But the people must be united, and they have to ask me to come back." It was a message that could not be lightly dismissed by the Aquino government.

With reporting by Sandra Burton/Honolulu and Nelly Sindayen/Manila