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With Garcia nominated, and the Nacionalista Party thus returning to pre-Magsaysay normalcy, Manila sat back to await the convention of the opposition Liberal Party, headed by 62-year-old José Yulo, onetime Philippine correspondent for John Foster Dulles' legal firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, and co-author (with U.S. Army Major Dwight D. Eisenhower*) of the first law passed by the new Philippine commonwealth in 1935.
Tea & Firearms. José Yulo's Liberal Party convention was no competition for the Nacionalistas in the Dewey Boulevard fleshpots. José Yulo wanted it that way, to contrast his party and Carlos Garcia's, since the Liberal Party is still trying to live down its reputation for corruption during the Quirino administration. Yulo gave one sedate, nonalcoholic tea to receive the delegates, 95% already pledged to him. There were no bosomy Yulo boosters and no peso sandwiches, but a fair number of Liberals obediently checked their firearms at the door.
Yulo had the nomination in the bag. But the first major blow to his campaign was his failure to win the support of Manuel (Manny) Manahan, 41, a man with a magnetic touch in the barrios whom many Filipinos regard as a potential second Magsaysay (TIME, May 13). Manahan refused to unite his Progressives with Yulo's Liberals unless nominated for Vice President, and Yulo had already pledged the job to able, 46-year-old Diosdado Macapagal, who has the necessary political asset of having also been a close friend of Magsaysay, and though a member of the opposition, was Magsaysay's voice on foreign affairs in the House of Representatives.
The news of Manny Manahan's decision to run on his own was wafted to pleased Carlos Garcia, cruising in Manila Bay on the presidential yacht Santa Maria. He hoped that Manahan's decision would split the vote of the anti-Garcia Magsaysay forces. The election will not be until November, but with both major conventions out of the way, Garcia at the beginning of the race has to be reckoned a slight favorite.
*Said Harry Truman to reporters after death of Franklin Roosevelt, "I don't know if any of you fellows ever had a load of hay or a bull fall on him. But last night the whole weight of the moon and the stars fell on me."
*Yulo says the law was really written by Major Eisenhower, that he took Ike's draft paragraphs, cut them out and pasted them into the proper order to constitute the proposed law (a defense measure), and sent it off to President Manuel Quezon, who rammed it through Congress without a change. Yulo, who used to play golf with Ike at Canlubang Country Club, quotes Major Eisenhower as exclaiming in wonder: "This is legislation by shears."