World Notes THE PHILIPPINES

To the government of Corazon Aquino, Columnist Luis Beltran of the daily Philippine Star has always been a gadfly. Last year he caused a stir by accusing a top Aquino aide of leaking vital state papers. Last week Beltran wrote that during the failed military mutiny in August "the President hid under her bed . . . perhaps the first commander in chief of the armed forces to do so."

Aquino was furious. She herded a score of local reporters into her bedroom and lifted the quilted coverlet of her bed to reveal a carpet-to-mattress wooden base. "It is impossible for me to hide under my bed," said the President. Perhaps hoping to give Beltran a sleepless night or two, she filed a libel suit against him. Besieged by leftist and rightist rebels as well as by a rumormongering press, Aquino last week explicitly raised the possibility of declaring martial law if needed "for the greater good of the country."