1986: Philippines

1986: Philippines

Archives consist of articles that originally appeared in Collier's Year Book (for events of 1997 and earlier) or as monthly updates in Encarta Yearbook (for events of 1998 and later). Because they were published shortly after events occurred, they reflect the information available at that time. Cross references refer to Archive articles of the same year.

For the Philippines, 1986 was a momentous year, one that saw a demure former housewife, Corazon (Cory) Aquino, overthrow the entrenched regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Marcos's ouster, after 20 years of nearly absolute power, brought an enormous sense of excitement and relief to many Filipinos but left the new government with monumental problems.

Peaceful Revolution.

Behind the peaceful revolution that placed Aquino in power lay years of growing public disillusionment with Marcos and his wife, Imelda, who allegedly amassed great wealth and personal power as the country's economy and democratic institutions deteriorated. Opposition to the Marcos regime, long sporadic and unfocused, gained a powerful rallying point in August 1983 when Aquino's husband, Benigno S. Aquino, a leading opposition figure, was assassinated at the Manila airport as he stepped off a plane on returning from political exile in the United States. Marcos insisted that Aquino had been murdered by a lone Communist-hired gunman, who was himself killed by security personnel on the tarmac just after Aquino was shot. Witnesses at a trial of 26 persons accused of involvement or complicity, including General Fabian Ver, Marcos's chief of staff, said Aquino had been shot in the back of the head as he descended the steps from the plane, while surrounded by army guards. But in December 1985 it was announced that all the accused had been acquitted of any involvement in the murder, a development that further antagonized many Filipinos. (In September 1986 the Philippines Supreme Court ordered a new trial, saying that the original verdict had been determined by Marcos himself.)

In early November 1985, amid growing popular protest and under pressure from Washington, Marcos called a presidential election for February 7, 1986, apparently thinking the results would show the world he was still in command. After some haggling among the divided opposition, Aquino was chosen to run against Marcos. Despite Marcos's control of television and the nation's newspapers, Aquino emerged as a political phenomenon; shouts of 'Cory! Cory! Cory!' followed her everywhere, and her cause was greatly aided by active support of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, led by the archbishop of Manila, Jaime Cardinal Sin. In addition, the U.S. government, having been unsuccessful in persuading Marcos to make major reforms, had grown unsympathetic to the regime.

On election day itself, Marcos operatives reportedly stole ballot boxes, rigged vote counts, and even shot Aquino supporters, often in front of U.S. television crews. By the official count, which he controlled, Marcos won. But a citizens' group acting as poll-watchers concluded differently, and the Aquino camp declared a campaign of nonviolent protests in the wake of the elections.

One of the most extraordinary moments of the year came later in February, when Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile barricaded himself in his military headquarters and the surrounding installation and announced that he supported Aquino. He was joined at first only by General Fidel Ramos, the West Point-educated deputy chief of staff, and a few hundred soldiers and reform-minded officers. But by nightfall on February 22, thousands of Filipinos had surrounded the Defense Ministry, in a Manila suburb, protecting the rebels from tanks and troops sent to attack them. With military leaders opposing him and his troops divided, Marcos had little hope of retaining power. Both he and Aquino took the oath of office in separate ceremonies on February 25. But just before midnight, Marcos and his entourage fled aboard a U.S. aircraft to Hawaii, with a stop first in Guam, leaving Aquino as president.

New Administration.

The 53-year-old Aquino was left with a legacy of seemingly intractable problems. She inherited Enrile, Marcos's former defense minister, and a large army, filled with former Marcos loyalists who, it was said, might turn against her at any time. She also faced the growing Communist insurgency in the countryside under its armed wing, the New People's Army, and a devastated economy. The Marcoses left the country with 70 percent of the population below the poverty line, the highest rate of malnutrition in Asia, and a per capita income that had been declining for the past five years.

The inexperienced Aquino took several months to get her administration moving, but she did take several significant actions that demonstrated her own style of democracy and reconciliation. Shortly after taking office, she released many political prisoners, including the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, Jose Maria Sison, over the objection of her new military aides. She also set up a team to begin negotiations with the New People's Army, which kept up its attacks on army outposts in the countryside.

Communist Rebels.

The Communists had an estimated 17,000 armed troops and were said to have infiltrated about one-fifth of the country's towns and villages. The leaders had fought for a decade against what they saw as a U.S.-backed imperialist government in Manila. In interviews after Aquino came to power, several Communist officials compared her to Marcos, noting that both came from wealthy families that owned vast sugarcane plantations. To the Communists, the 'people power' revolution represented a transfer of power from one group of oligarchs to another. The Communist leadership reportedly quarreled over whether it had made a mistake by boycotting the presidential election and by not intervening to help Aquino when Enrile switched sides — moves that may have lost them a chance to participate in a new coalition government. But the long-term Communist strategy seemed to remain steady: to await a further worsening of the economy and riper conditions for their own revolution. For her part, Aquino said that she wanted to exhaust every possible avenue for peace before unleashing the army. Some critics of Aquino, both inside and outside the army, opposed her approach and wanted speedier action.

These problems crystalized in October after government soldiers captured Rodolfo Salas, the chairman of the Philippine Communist Party, just as it appeared Aquino's negotiators were about to win Communist assent to an interim 30-day cease-fire. The Communists claimed that the arrest had been timed to derail the negotiations, a charge the government denied. The Communists broke off talks and demanded Salas's release, but the government refused. Talks resumed later in October, though Enrile increasingly loomed as an obstacle to accord. Reinforcing a widespread belief that he wanted to be president, Enrile publicly called Aquino's government 'ineffective.' Seemingly to mollify Enrile and his right-wing supporters, Aquino said she would set a deadline for Communist rebels either to accept a cease-fire or face a 'declaration of war.' The rebels then offered a 100-day cease-fire, but negotiations broke down again in November when a leftist political leader was slain; his associates blamed the military.

Domestic Affairs.

In another controversial action, Aquino in March abolished the 1973 constitution imposed by Marcos and disbanded Parliament. She replaced hundreds of local officials, giving their jobs to her own followers, and appointed a commission to write a new constitution. The final draft, approved by the commission in October after some delay, called for a presidency with a six-year term, a bicameral legislature, and an independent judiciary. The commission also approved an article that would make the Philippines a nuclear-free zone, a reflection of growing nationalism among many Filipinos, and it gave the legislature a voice in the future of U.S. military bases. The constitution was to be put before voters in a national plebiscite in February 1987. If it was approved, elections for a new national legislature were to be held in May 1987 and elections for local offices shortly thereafter. In late October, Vice President Salvador Laurel said the plebiscite should also ask voters whether he and Aquino should serve out their six-year terms or whether another presidential election should be held in May as well. His remarks were seen as a challenge to Aquino, who had largely excluded him from decision-making. Enrile posed an even greater challenge, and Aquino dismissed him in November — after General Ramos (who had become chief of staff) apparently headed off a coup attempt by troops loyal to Enrile.

Aquino moved very slowly on the economy, where continued low prices for the Philippines' main exports — sugar, copra oil, and copper — made progress difficult. Her ministers' squabbles over the proper method of land reform also held up progress in this crucial area. But she did manage to reduce inflation from more than 50 percent in 1984 to an estimated 4 percent for 1986.

U.S. Relations.

Aquino's hopes were bolstered by a whirlwind nine-day visit to the United States in September. Within hours of an address to a joint session of Congress, which House Speaker Thomas P. 'Tip' O'Neill called the best speech he had ever heard there, the House of Representatives voted to give the Philippines an additional $200 million in economic aid. The Senate ultimately followed suit, giving the Philippines a total of $500 million in U.S. aid for fiscal year 1987.

During her U.S. visit, Aquino also met with leaders representing a group of 483 foreign banks to whom the Philippines owed $14 billion of its huge $26 billion foreign debt, among the largest foreign debts outside of Latin America. The rest was owed to international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the Asian Development Bank. Aquino wanted the banks to restructure the debt, which requires interest payments of $2 billion a year, an amount equal to half the country's foreign exchange earnings. In October the IMF approved a loan to the Philippines of almost $520 million, a move that could prompt additional loans from other creditors.

The debt was largely compiled during the Marcos era, as a result of expensive projects from which the Marcoses and their friends allegedly embezzled billions of dollars. A commission established by the Aquino government to recover assets acquired by the Marcoses estimated that they had left the country with between $5 billion and $10 billion, invested in everything from New York City office buildings and secret Swiss bank accounts to Australian resort properties. Part of Malacañang Palace, where Imelda Marcos kept thousands of pairs of shoes and hundreds of gowns, was turned into a museum to remind Filipinos of the Marcoses' opulent life-style.

In September the Aquino government received the first concrete results of its search for this hidden wealth when a judge in New Jersey ordered that a $1 million estate near Princeton be turned over to the Manila authorities. The 18th-century house, on 13.5 acres of land, had been used by the Marcoses' daughter Imee while she was a student at Princeton University. In other action, the U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh began a grand jury investigation into reports that the Westinghouse Electric Corporation had paid as much as $80 million to Marcos and HerminioDisini, an in-law of Marcos, for help in winning the contract in 1976 to build the Philippines' first nuclear power plant. The plant, built near a geological fault and on the flank of a volcano, cost approximately $2.1 billion and was not completed; the Aquino government declared that it would never be allowed to open. In the meantime, Manila had to repay some $200 million a year in interest on money borrowed to construct it.

A major debate continued over the future presence in the Philippines of Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Station, the two largest and most important U.S. military installations in the Western Pacific. Aquino at first favored the removal of the bases, but after taking office she reversed herself, saying she would respect the current base agreement until it expires in 1991.

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Researcher: Jen, 18