For the first time in many months, Corazon Aquino wore her fighting color: yellow. It had been adopted as a trademark hue by the gigantic crowds that participated in her greatest triumph, the 1986 overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos. Now the Philippine President was taking up the color again as she launched a campaign against her gravest threat, a deep national malaise brought on by government ineptitude and the continuing threat of violent rebellion from left and right.
Speaking to a gathering of 1,300 supportive but nervous businessmen in Manila, Aquino was feisty, sarcastic and uncommonly firm. Said the President: "The question...