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Aquino is learning how to forge positions that no longer sound startlingly naive, if idealistically attractive, to her listeners. One of her earliest promises was that if elected, she would not move into Malacanang Palace; instead she would open the residence for public wedding ceremonies. Now she sounds much less like a Filipina flower child. In her Rotary speech last week, Aquino laid out a program for lifting Marcos' "institutionalized dictatorship" that included an appeal to the Marcos-controlled National Assembly to repeal the presidential powers of preventive detention and return to the rule of habeas corpus. If the Assembly balks, she will use the rule- by-decree Amendment 6 to repeal those powers herself. Aquino would then work for a series of constitutional changes that would finally eliminate the dangerous Amendment 6.
Aquino's plan for dealing with the Communist insurgency is more controversial. She says that she would, if elected, call for an immediate six- month cease-fire in order to open negotiations with the guerrillas. She would also offer a pardon to any political prisoner willing to renounce the use of force. Aquino believes that the insurgency will lose much of its momentum once Marcos leaves office. But she insists that she will use force to fight any group that seeks to overthrow a genuinely democratic government or "destroy our cultural heritage, including our belief in God." Early in her campaign Aquino gave Marcos a target of opportunity when she said that she would offer Communists who eschewed the use of force a place in her government. Later she backed away from that statement, choosing to emphasize instead her personal anti-Communist beliefs.
On economic issues Aquino has drawn cheers from Filipino businessmen by promising to return the country to the path of free enterprise. Among other things, she has vowed to break the Marcos government's bureaucratic stranglehold on the national economy, to dismantle local monopolies over sugar and coconut marketing and production, and to renegotiate the country's foreign debt.
Aquino has received two important boosts in her low-budget, grass-roots campaign. One came from the organized left, which decided to boycott the election. That decision by a variety of organizations that have proved to be susceptible to New People's Army influence made it easier for Aquino to defend herself against Marcos' charges that she is a cat's-paw for the Communist insurgents.
The other boost came from the Roman Catholic Church. With some 13,000 priests and nuns spread across the country, the church is probably the only | force in the Philippines that matches the organizational might of Marcos' political machine. Two weeks ago Cardinal Sin sent a letter to all 2,200 Philippine parishes instructing the faithful to vote for "persons who embody the Gospel values of humility, truth, honesty, respect for human rights and life." Few Filipinos had to guess whom he meant. Aquino, says the Cardinal, "is always listening to me."
Increasingly, members of some influential Philippine groups that have traditionally backed Marcos seem to be shifting to Aquino. One sign: the Chinese business community is said to have begun to funnel sizable amounts of cash into the challenger's campaign.