As coup attempts go, last week's bungled takeover in Manila was a pretty tame affair. Few were hurt, and only one rebel soldier was killed. Despite some rock throwing and a few blasts of tear gas, the 61-hour drama often seemed more like a soap opera than a mutiny. Still, President Corazon Aquino did not need even a small rebellion on the eve of a critical vote on her proposed new constitution. She could not be happy that, for the second time in two months, she had to be rescued by her divided military. Nor could she be sanguine about a failed attempt by her archrival, Ferdinand Marcos, to return home to rally his backers.
Most of the rebellion's drama centered on the Channel 7 TV compound in suburban Manila, where some 160 mutinous soldiers and 100 civilians huddled inside the walls while a thousand government troops waited nervously outside. Since friendships cut across the lines, the two sides opted to trade radio messages instead of shots. "Mommy, take care of my children," sobbed a female mutineer. Came the government's response, from the five-year-old daughter of Rebel Leader Colonel Oscar Canlas: "Daddy, come home. Mommy has a stomachache."
As frantic negotiations between the government and rebel troops wore into a third day, attention shifted to Hawaii. There, at Honolulu International Airport, a private 707 jet was discovered parked on a runway, waiting to fly Marcos home from his Hawaiian exile. A few days earlier Wife Imelda had been spotted in a Waikiki military-surplus store buying $2,000 worth of combat gear. Moreover, a videotape had been seized in Manila that showed the deposed Marcos lifting dumbbells, shadowboxing and praying to return home. The cumulative impact hit like a bombshell. The Aquino government quickly alerted American officials, who bluntly warned Marcos that if he tried to return to the Philippines without permission, he would be refused re-entry into the U.S. Fumed Marcos: "I am being treated like a prisoner."
The timing of the bizarre events was hardly coincidental, inasmuch as this week's yes or no on a new constitution will serve as a test of Aquino's electoral strength. If the charter is resoundingly approved, the President will be assured a full six-year term and her political opposition will be effectively neutralized until 1992. "The plebiscite is the last chance for the Marcos loyalists," says a senior Western diplomat in Manila. If Aquino fails to secure at least 65% of the vote, the opposition may demand a snap presidential election. Aquino's former Defense Minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, has actively campaigned for a no vote. While there was no evidence linking Enrile to the aborted coup, neither was there any doubt that he intended to exploit Aquino's troubles. Warned Enrile last week: "There is a real degree of erosion in the vaunted political strength of Aquino."