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Unfriendly Friendship. Recto is the Nacionalista Party's foreign affairs spokesman, chairman of the Senate's armed services committee and dominant member of its foreign affairs committee. From those strategic points, he is busily at work sniping at the works of Magsaysay and of the U.S. His objectives and motives are hotly debated in Manila. His dominant ambition at the moment seems to be to cut Magsaysay down to size. Since Magsaysay is the republic's most ardent pro-American, Recto attacks him by attacking things American. Recto himself maintains that he really likes the U.S.
and merely wants to show it, as a friend, how to be right and effective in Asia. But Americans in Manila have come to feel that the U.S. can well do without this particular kind of friendly help.
Signature on Paper. Recto's recommendations and. attitudes resemble in many ways those of India's Nehru—or at any rate come to about the same end. Recto currently opposes U.S.—and Magsaysay—policy on such crucial questions as the status of U.S. bases in the Philippines, trade terms, mutual security arrangements. One day not long ago, he enraged an American at a Lions Club meeting in Manila. The American asked if he simply refuses to trust the word of the U.S. He would trust the U.S., Recto answered, only if he had its signature on paper.
In return for his strong sponsorship of Magsaysay, Recto won the Under Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs for one of his young law associates, Leon Guerrero.
Guerrero, without consultation with President Magsaysay, promptly proclaimed that "Asia for the Asians" was to be the basis of Philippine foreign policy. Recto and Laurel enthusiastically applauded.
Magsaysay, rightly seeing in it a direct challenge to his authority and his policy, banned use of the slogan in the future.
This deepened Recto's dissatisfaction, and a showdown became unavoidable.
Would Magsaysay or Recto's "old guard" run the party and the government? Last week President Magsaysay drafted a five-point "summary of general principles," then invited Nacionalista Party leaders to dine with him at Malacanan. Only Senator Recto refused to go; he was in mourning for a son who was killed in a recent accident.
On a wide and windy balcony overlooking the dirty Pasig River, the Senators and Congressmen affably downed a hearty dinner of turtle soup, egg. roast beef and ice cream. Then Magsaysay handed his statement of principles to Senator Eulogio Rodriguez, president of both the party and the Senate, who read it to the group.
It pledged all elected officials to "carry out the mandate of the national electorate," including Magsaysay's campaign promise of land reform. In two direct par agraphs, Magsaysay laid before the politicians the heart of the conflict: "Recognizing the clear and inescapable threat of Communist imperialism . . . the administration seeks participation in the free world's collective security mechaniasm to the fullest extent of our capabilities . . .