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To counter that perception, Aquino has visited N.P.A. war zones, raised military pay to quiet the restive soldiers, delivered tough-sounding speeches and demanded that radical labor unions end their strikes and obey back-to-work court orders. Aquino can claim some credit for this year's expected 5% rate of economic growth, an impressive figure after three years of negative and near zero expansion. Yet the resurgent economy has only begun to replenish the depleted treasury. Aquino's attempts to run an efficient government and an effective war against the N.P.A. are hampered by a lack of funds. An expected surge in U.S. aid has turned out to be a mere trickle. Because of the Gramm- Rudman budget-balancing law, the State Department has had to scale down its 1988 request for economic and military assistance to the Philippines from $471.8 million in 1987 to $267.3 million. Egypt and Israel alone account for 40% of all U.S. foreign aid, while the Philippines -- site of the two largest U.S. military bases on foreign soil -- this year received only 3.5%. Says a State Department official: "The picture is totally bleak."
The political picture in the Philippines also remains grim. Byzantine intrigues continue to be launched against Aquino. To distract the nervous capital, her enemies on both the right and the left freely sow sensationalist rumors among Manila's 28 newspapers. The city's coffee shops and political salons cultivate witticisms to poison the President's reputation. One favorite is a Spanish pun on the name Corazon C. Aquino. With a finger at the chest, the speaker says, "Corazon, si" (she has a heart); with a finger at the head, he continues, "Aqui, no" (here, nothing).
Last month Aquino's disaffected Vice President, Salvador Laurel, secretly | sent feelers to Honasan, who remains at large in or around Manila and constantly threatens to strike again with rebel soldiers. Laurel, who has publicly attacked Aquino and her policies, wanted assurances that the colonel would not stage a coup while the Vice President was in the U.S. on a speaking tour. Laurel was afraid that if Aquino were ousted from the presidency while he was abroad, he would be maneuvered out of the succession. Aquino, meanwhile, was not above tweaking her Vice President. Members of Philippine consulates in the U.S. were forbidden to attend Laurel's speeches.
Even as rumors of new military uprisings swirl, the Communists have begun to show their hand in the capital, infiltrating its unruly confines with small assassination squads known as Sparrow units, so called for their small size and great mobility. This year more than 150 policemen and soldiers have been killed. To counter the hit squads, Manila police -- with Aquino's reluctant approval -- have organized gangs of vigilantes to drive out the Communists. Last week more than 4,000 Manila residents signed up for duty. Those who are accepted will be issued weapons and given training. The Communists are fighting back. Police last week found the body of a man in a cloth bag along a Manila highway. On the sack were the words THIS IS A VIGILANTE. Says Max Soliven, a columnist for the daily Philippine Star: "The seeds of civil war are being sown, and nobody can predict where it will all end."