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At the center of the confusion, and the controversy, are the human rights activists, whom Aquino admires for their idealism and especially for the faithfulness with which they stood by her husband during the dark days of martial law. Ninoy's lawyer Joker Arroyo is her executive secretary; Ninoy's cellmate Jose Diokno is chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights; Ninoy's friend Locsin is her speechwriter. Many people feel that Aquino is too protective of these advisers and that they are too protective of her. The prime target of these charges is the principled but overworked Arroyo, who sometimes spends as much as six hours a day huddling with the President.
The conflict between personal loyalty and public policy becomes even more vexing when it comes to Aquino's own large family. If ever the President moves, as promised, to redistribute national wealth, she can hardly afford to overlook the wealth of the Cojuangcos. More troublesome still are the activities of her younger brother and close adviser Jose ("Peping"), who has been accused of reaping personal profits from two new casinos in Manila.
Having changed the rules of Philippine politics, moreover, the self- professed housewife often finds herself judged by the old rules. In restoring her country's freedoms, for example, she is content to go about her business while Marcos loyalists stir up trouble in the streets and Cabinet ministers speak their minds to the 26 daily newspapers in rumor-mad Manila. The resulting appearance of dissentious sound and fury is, she says, simply a sign of the government's self-confident strength: democracy in action. Others take it for weakness.
Likewise, her slowness to act while former Defense Minister Enrile was openly challenging her authority was widely seen as a symptom of her habit of praying and delaying. Yet her admirers point to the Enrile firing as an example of an inspired sense of timing. "She's an extraordinarily good judge of people and performance," says Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who led the U.S. team of observers at the February elections and returned to Manila in August. "She has instinctive feelings of loyalty and of who is pulling with her."
Certainly, her swift if belated stroke of decisiveness against Enrile dispelled in a single blow much of the turmoil that was unsettling Manila. And when she went on to ax four controversial ministers, while signing a cease- fire with the Communist rebels, Aquino pulled off a strategic coup of her own. Few could doubt that she had mastered the Napoleonic axiom that "justice means force as well as virtue."
That radical shake-up also succeeded in soothing, for the moment, some of the restiveness of the 250,000 men of the army. General Ramos, the head of the armed services, has declared himself repeatedly, in word and deed, to be fully behind the President. Nevertheless, as many as 6,000 young officers in the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM), outraged at Enrile's ouster, may yet make trouble.