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Since the Marcos government began pouring in troops in the mid-1970s, hostilities in the southern Philippines have noticeably diminished, even though the armed Muslim guerrillas, officially estimated at 10,000, still make life difficult for the army. Military helicopters ferrying the dead are an almost daily sight at Zamboanga City's airport. On the other hand, a hit-and-run guerrilla war being waged by the N.P.A. in northeastern Luzon, Samar and four other regions is steadily intensifying. Though believed to number only 2,000 to 3,000 armed guerrillas, the N.P.A. operates with hundreds of quicksilver squads, each with five to ten men and women who seem to be everywhere and nowhere as they flit from one "ambush of opportunity" to another. "The N.P.A. still isn't in a position to engage the army in a frontal confrontation," says a clandestine leading member of the outlawed Communist Party. "But that day will come."
In the view of many observers, that day may still be a long way off. They feel that Marcos, while under bruising pressure from several different directions, is still in no imminent danger of being overthrown, because no mass revolutionary movement of sufficient breadth and organization has yet coalesced against him. The opposition, while widespread and vocal, is still a scattershot assemblage of disparate groups that do not yet show any serious sign of forming a common front comparable to the Islamic-leftist coalition that originally brought down the Shah. Democratic moderates are still divided by longstanding rivalries, but they are being increasingly united by the intensity of their distaste for Marcos and resentment against what they perceive as his U.S. support. The most popular opposition leader is former Senator Benigno Aquino, 46, a onetime provincial warlord, who has been Marcos' political prisoner since 1972. Last year Marcos forces had to do some urgent ballot-box stuffing to prevent Aquino from outpolling Imelda in a legislative election, even though Aquino conducted his campaign from a prison cell. Some diplomats believe that Aquino, as a free man, would defeat Marcos handily in a national election, which helps explain why Marcos is not about to free him or call an election.
The Roman Catholic Church, to which 85% of Filipinos belong, is by no means united either. Most bishops either stand aloof, or behind Marcos. In the parishes, however, hostility to martial law and its abuses has led many priests and nuns to help the Communists against Marcos. Those leftist sympathies, in turn, are said to have compelled Cardinal Sin to try to hold the church together by raising his own voice against the regime. A conservative on most issues, the outspoken primate has begun rebuking Cabinet ministers and publicly urged Marcos to call honest elections or step down. He has also challenged Imelda on church-state issues, most notably on her plans to build an imposing 14-chapel basilica at a cost of more than $100 million. After the Cardinal pointedly suggested that the money could be better spent on the poor, Marcos himself quietly shelved the project.