When mild little Carlos Garcia took over as President of the Philippines after the plane-crash death of the nation's beloved Ramon Magsaysay last March, Garcia announced, in a paraphrase of Harry Truman, that he felt as if he had been hit by a ton of bricks.* Like Truman, he was a faithful member of an old political machine, was picked as Vice President on straight party considerations, and seemed no man to fill his predecessor's larger shoes. Charley Garcia, 60, was expected to serve out the remaining nine months of Ramon Magsaysay's term, and then agreeably take a comfortable political sinecure to get out of the way.
Nothing but Nice Things. But Garcia resembled Harry Truman in another way: he was determined to make it on his own, and he had a way of confounding the experts. Last week in Manila, as the last of 1,300 delegates to Garcia's (and Magsaysay's) Nacionalista Party convention packed up to go home, Garcia had the presidential nomination in his pocket (with 888 votes on the first ballot). At Garcia's feet lay the defeated Nacionalista paladins who had sought to deny him the nomination, including Nacionalista Party Boss Eulogio ("Amang") Rodriguez, Garcia's onetime mentor, who went down to defeat with 69 votes, and bitter, professionally anti-American Claro Recto, Magsaysay's most implacable enemy, who won a humiliating 14 votes.
Even by Philippine standards, it had been quite a convention. Garcia's task force took over the fancier Dewey Boulevard's nightclubs to entertain the delegates. Everything, including the samba-happy hostesses, was on the house. Delegates were met at airports, bus and rail stations by Garcia men who eagerly pressed a little convention spending money (from about $150 to $250, depending on the delegate, said Garcia's opponents) into their hands, guided them off forthwith to Dewey Boulevard.
Welcome the Day Shift. When the convention formally opened at Santa Ana race track in Manila's suburb of Makati, the delegates passed through turnstiles where they were shaken down by khaki-clad cops, standing beside signs that read: "Please Deposit Your Firearms and Deadly Weapons Here." Dutifully, 39 delegates deposited gats the first day.
As they left the turnstiles, the delegates were set upon immediately by bevies of bosomy beauties wearing "Garcia for President" sashes over their décolletage. "Ah," said one red-eyed delegate, "I see the day shift has taken over." Garcia opponents complained that the Garcia buttons pinned on delegates' lapels often had 10-peso bills under the button. The free sandwiches, similarly equipped, came to be known as "peso sandwiches."
Candidate Garcia himself was at a command post five miles away playing chess with his military aide, broke off the game briefly to intervene when he feared that his floor handlers might ineptly let the first ballot be taken Sunday morning instead of Saturday night. Warned experienced Old Pol Garcia: "You can never tell what will happen during twelve dark hours."