(3 of 11)
The nature of that change is a matter of major concern to the Reagan Administration. Officially, the U.S. position is that it favors no particular candidate so long as the balloting exercise is "free, fair and credible." Says U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Stephen Bosworth: "We are confident that we can work effectively with whatever government the Filipino people elect in a fair and clean election." In a country where even in the best of times election procedures have been marred by vote buying, ballot-box stuffing and other forms of fraud, that is a tall order. Last week U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar agreed to lead an official delegation of American observers to the Philippines for the balloting.
Vote rigging would be a calamity, as Assistant Secretary of State Wolfowitz put it last week, because it undoubtedly would turn large numbers of Filipinos to "radical alternatives, specifically the Communists." Wolfowitz, speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also decried an atmosphere of "intimidation" that is on the increase in some areas of the Philippines. So far, at least ten Aquino campaign workers and four Marcos supporters have been slain during the presidential race.
Behind a facade of impartiality, however, the Administration has been straining for months to shape what it feels to be the inevitable post-Marcos transition. So persistent have the U.S. efforts been that Ambassador Bosworth is referred to by some Marcos aides as the "leader of the opposition." Wolfowitz's gloomy public assessment of the insurgency, for example, was part of a U.S. push to reform the corrupt and inefficient 230,000-member armed forces and paramilitary, which have been largely ineffective in combatting the Communist threat. As part of its approach, the U.S. has also offered the Marcos government moderate doses of military assistance (total budgeted for fiscal 1986: $55 million). Says a senior U.S. official: "Military aid is the only thing keeping the reform movement alive."
How alive is another matter. Marcos has proved to be a master at slipping away from U.S. attempts to lasso him into reform. Much U.S. effort, for example, has been aimed at getting Marcos to retire General Fabian Ver, the President's cousin, as armed forces Chief of Staff. Washington was pointedly critical of a Philippine court decision in December to exonerate Ver in the 1983 assassination of Benigno ("Ninoy") Aquino, the President's chief political opponent and the husband of Challenger Corazon Aquino. More than any other event, the Aquino assassination galvanized popular opposition to Marcos, leading up to his snap election call. Subsequent U.S. pressure led to a vague presidential promise that Ver would "probably" retire before the elections, but last week Marcos seemed to backtrack on that.