From barrio to barrio, and on every city street corner, the name of Ramon Magsaysay rang across the Philippines last week. Election day was only four weeks off, and every presidential and congressional candidate was busily trying to identify himself with the late great President, who was killed in an airplane crash only seven months ago. "Keep faith with Magsaysay!" cried the Nacionalistas of President Carlos P. Garcia, the smooth, shrewd politician who succeeded to the presidency on Magsaysay's death. "Magsaysay was our guy; now Yulo is our Magsaysay," proclaimed the Liberals, ignoring the fact that Ramon Magsaysay deserted them in disgust for the Nacionalistas.
The Old Squeeze. Despite the invocation of his hallowed name, Philippine politicos seemed rapidly sloughing off the uncomfortable standards of honesty that Magsaysay had brought to Philippine political life. Within weeks of his death, President Garcia had eased Magsaysay's dedicated young men out of the administration. It was not always done with subtlety. Minister of Labor Eleuteria Adevoso found that his salary had been cut out of the annual appropriation by the Nacionalista-controlled Congress; when he resigned, the Congress restored the appropriation for his successor. Soon there was cynical talk of politicians once again dabbling in black-market deals, of the old squeeze put on Chinese merchants who, living as aliens, are always vulnerable to threats of deportation, or special harassing regulations.
Vote buying and intimidation were back. Garcia assured his nomination by a flood of political bounty; Garcia buttons were handed out with 10-peso bills tucked inside (TIME, Aug. 12). In the campaign, the Nacionalistas have spent in quantities unmatched since the Liberals threw around more than $1,000,000 in public funds in 1953 (and lost). To counter the Nacionalistas' largesse, the Liberals' Presidential Candidate José Yulo has used an estimated $2,500,000 of his personal sugar fortune. Throughout the countryside, well-armed election workers were busily canvassing voters for campaign funds, with their guns suggestively visible. Complaints of pre-election fraud, terrorism and violence poured in on the Commission of Elections, which plaintively asked all candidates to limit their armed bodyguards to a maximum of four each.
Charges of corruption flew. Says Yulo: "If Garcia wins, the graft will in two years produce economic chaos and a new Communist upsurge." Retorts Garcia: "Yulo says he is an honest man, but everyone knows he is being sued for taxes." Actually, both Garcia and Yulo are considered personally honest. A rarity among veteran politicians, Garcia has never been accused of enriching himself in office. Even opponents have conceded that suave, handsome Yulo is "a clean drop of water in a pail of dirty Liberal mud." Both are profoundly pro-American, but Yulo emphasizes his business experience as equipping him best to deal with the nation's teetering economy. "If you elect me, I promise to treat you as kindly as I do the laborers on my estate," he told one audience.