The end of the first
International Viewpoint 8 December 1986
PHILIPPINES one.
The general staff in fact is pursuing several objectives. It seeks to maintain surveillance over the course of negotiations with the NDF, an initiative of civilians that has entered a new stage with the signing of a 60-
Aquino government day ceasefire agreement.
It wants government of those rid the to elements most opposed to intervention by the army in political affairs.
And it seeks to reunify an army that
THE UNSTABLE balance in the government coalition put together in
February 1986 has just been broken by a succession of dramatic events - the brutal murder of Rolando Olalia, the mass demonstration at his funeral and an aborted coup d'etat. (1)
President Corazon Aquino had to make a quick decision. She struck a blow at the far right by removing Minister of Defence Juan
Ponce Enrile. But she also seemed to strike at the center-left by carrying out a broader cabinet shakeup.
PAUL PETITJEAN
The main beneficiaries from the government crisis hierarchy, which has tightened its over the goverment;
General Fidel Ramos, chief general staff, who has come to the forefront of the political scene.
Aquino's first government elitist bourgeois one.
forces that ousted Marcos in February
1986. Alongside Enrile, the instigator martial law
Marcos, sat various personalities known for their work for human rights and
"government for participating in the of the streets" after Benigno Aquino's murder in 1983.
Cohabiting in this government were anti-dictatorial "February revolution"
through to a conclusion by setting up wanting to crown the February coup d'etat by assuring the army a central role in the politics of the country.
This coalition apparently held up three, the regime forced the general to accept a series of radical and political reforms release of a great number of political dissolution of the prisoners, rump the handing over of parliament, powers to the presidency, the dismantling of parasitic economic monopolies, of the administrapurging tion and the introduction of important democratic rights.
However, since
June
- 1986 the combined activity of the military hierarchy and the most conservative both inside and outside of forces, blocked the governthe government, reform.
ment's of bourgeois course
Despite retirements and reassignments, army - protected by the martial-law the United States - remained intact, as well as the economic and social power of the rich.
The contradictions within the government grew without letup, given the ceasefire negotiations with the National Democratic Front (NDF), the announcement of a constitutional referendum for February 2, 1987, and the buildup for legislative elections next spring. They have just come to breaking point.
Enrile, defence, is a civilian, a former lawyer, like Marcos. Although allied to the "Rambos," the hardliners in the leadership of the (Reform the Armed Forces Movement), he does not have a solid base within the military hierarchy. His political base is a provincial one (the Cagayan valley) and a regional one (the clients of the Marcos regime in the Illocano country in the northern part of the island of Luzon).
Devoured by personal ambition, Enrile sought to place himself right
Corazon Aquino, being prepared even to open up a major poliplebiscite scheduled for next February.
It was in this context that a fullof tension was set fire negotiations (with the arrest of the communist leader Rodolfo Salas murder of Rolando Olalia), the kidnapping of a top planting of bombs and the assassination in Manila of Ulberto Umawa Tugung, a Muslim political leader allied with Aquino.
Thus, Enrile as a member of the government became, even from the standpoint of the imperialists, irrational therefore for the moment a dangerous has been very divided since February
The military hierarchy has at least a partial success.
of detence, Rafael Ileto, who was trained at West Point, has experience insurgency. He led the Rangers when the Huks were crushed in the late 1950s. As ambassador in Iran, he saw the fall of the Shah. As ambassador in Thailand, he was able to study closely the crisis of the communist guerrillas in the early 1980s.
the lawyer Jose Diokno, known for his tions, is ill, Ramon Mitra is directing the negotiations with the NDF. He has the confidence of the military. Bobbit Sanchez may be ousted from the government. A former minister of labor who stands politically to the center-left, he aroused the open hostility of the multinationals, Washington, Filipino business circles and of the leaders of the TUCP (the union confederation recognized under Marcos) by favoring the development of independent trade-unionism.
of Joker Arroyo, president's advisor, will probably be reduced. A human-rights lawyer close to Aquino, he has long been considmost powerful person in government. But, lacking polihe has never been able to utilize this position.
Although he was evolving toward the right, Aquilino Pimentel, leader of the PDP-Laban and former minister of local government, a key position in the buildup for the legislative elections, was seen by the military as an intractable element. On the eve of the recent
This head was quite formally demanded by General Fidel Ramos, with those of Sanchez and
We will have to await the composition and policy of the next government to assess the exact price that Aquino has paid for her alliance with the military hierarchy. But we are seeing a clear readjustment of the regime to the right. The general staff and Washington are consolidating their right to keep a direct check on the political affairs of the country.
1, See International Viewpoint,' No. 109, November 24, 1986.
3
PHILIPPINES
Nonetheless, the regime's difficul ties have not been resolved. Enrile and the Marcos "loyalists" are going to constitute a strong and active neodictatorial opposition to the government. The army is far from reunified. The second Aquino government will continue to be undermined by internal
Above movement will not let the democratic gains it won in intense struggle be taken from it. The revolutionary left remains powerful. More fundamentally still, Aquino's political project itself -bourgeois reform to head off revolution - has been put into question by growing dependence
In his view, the party's traditional analysis of Filipino society (characterized as semi-colonial and semifeudal), its strategy and its fundamental tactical conceptions are not in question.
However, at the time these interviews were made, Satur Ocampo, one of the key leaders of the CPP, the contradictions, particularly as legislative elections approach.