Rebels, Marcos Contest

Control of Philippines
By William Branigin
February 24, 1986

Rebels seeking the resignation of Philippine

President Ferdinand Marcos today took
over the government television station and
launched an attack on an air base near
Manila's international airport.

As the attack on the station was under way,

Marcos, in a broadcast from the palace,
declared a "state of emergency" and ordered
radio and television stations to stop
broadcasting "propaganda" of rebel military
forces after Manila erupted into celebrations
following an erroneous report that Marcos
and his family had left the country.

The rebel air force also claimed to have

destroyed five Huey helicopters on the
ground at Villamor Air Base near the Manila
airport this morning and to have fired six
rockets at the Malacanang presidential
palace this morning "just to show them we
could."

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Opposition leader Corazon Aquino, who was

reported at an undisclosed location in
Manila, issued a radio appeal for citizens to
join massive crowds around Camp Crame,
held by former defense minister Juan Ponce
Enrile and Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos, the former
acting armed forces chief of staff.

On two occasions since the mutiny began on

Saturday, government forces seeking to
clear a path toward the rebel camp were
blocked by thousands of anti-Marcos
civilian protesters.

Rebel forces holding Camp Crame were

bolstered by the arrival of six Air Force
helicopters armed with rockets and machine
guns and carrying more defectors earlier
today. Enrile claimed that the rebels now
have "the helicopter strike group of the Air
Force" as well as four battalions of troops. A
Philippine battalion normally contains
about 700 soldiers.

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Before the government lost control of the

television station, Marcos made his
declaration of a state of emergency during a
joint appearance with his armed forces chief
of staff, Gen. Fabian Ver, in which the two
men engaged in an extraordinary argument
on national television.

Ver badgered the president to allow him to

call in air strikes on the camp with two F5
planes that were circling overhead. Marcos
refused, telling Ver to disperse civilians
gathered outside the camp without shooting
them.

"The Air Force, sir, is ready to mount an air

attack were the civilians to leave the vicinity
of Camp Crame immediately, Mr.
President," Ver said impatiently, while the
news conference was in progress. "That's
why I come here on your orders so we can
immediately strike them. We have to
immobilize the helicopters that they got."

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Marcos interrupted and said, "My order is

not to attack. No, no, no. Hold on; not to
attack."

Ver persisted, "Our negotiations and our

prior dialogue have not succeeded, Mr.
President."

Marcos replied: "All I can say is that we may

have to reach the point we may have to
employ heavy weapons, but you will use the
small weapons in hand or shoulder weapons
in the meantime."

Ver complained, "Our attack forces are

being delayed" and that Marcos had given
them orders to wait. "There are many
civilians near our troops, and we cannot
keep on withdrawing. We cannot withdraw
all the time, Mr. President."

Marcos then gave the order to disperse the

crowd without firing on the civilians.

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Marcos repeatedly denied in an opening

statement that the rebel forces had taken
over the country.

He also insisted that "there is no way under

which I can step down or resign from the
position of president. If necessary, I will
defend this position with all the force at my
disposal."

Marcos accused the rebels of "trying to

establish a revolutionary government," but
he insisted that "we are in control of the
military."

However, there were signs that control was

slipping away from Marcos and his loyalist
forces. Shortly after the news conference,
officials at the presidential palace ordered
employes to go home as heavily armed
marines patrolled the palace grounds.

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Marcos did not elaborate on what the state

of emergency entailed, other than
restrictions on radio and television
broadcasts.

As he made his opening statement to assert

that he remained in control, members of his
family, including four grandchildren,
appeared with him to disprove broadcast
allegations that they had fled the country.
The children shouted and frolicked about as
the president solemnly made his
announcements.

Marcos appealed to civilians to stay away

from "human barricades" in front of the
rebel base because, he said, "lives may be
endangered by an exchange of small-arms
fire."

In the course of the televised news

conference in which Marcos announced the
state of emergency, the government
television station suddenly went off the air.

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Marcos, guarded by about 50 armed soldiers

in combat gear at the Malacanang
presidential palace, said that the rebels
"have started attacking some positions." He
ordered loyalist troops to resist any
attempts to overrun their positions.

During the assault on the television station,

three government soldiers and one civilian
were injured, according to news agencies. As
the rebel soldiers moved from room to room
in the station, defenders shouted, "We are
brothers, don't shoot!" They then
surrendered, but forces loyal to Marcos
immediately launched a counterattack,
United Press International reported.

The government television station, put off

the air during Marcos' press conference,
resumed broadcasting with a panel of
opposition leaders on camera. Opposition
member of parliament Mel Lopez said a new
government would be declared soon and
appealed to all military officers and soldiers
not to support Marcos "because he is no
longer the president of the Philippines."

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He said Aquino and her running mate,

Salvador Laurel, would broadcast
statements soon to mark their takeover as
president and vice president. The
opposition leader called on citizens to
surround the television station en masse to
protect it against counterattack.

Residents of the neighborhood near the

Malacanang palace were seen moving out of
their homes with their belongings in what
resembled a refugee scene. Hundreds of
palace guards fired shots into the air and
used water cannons to disperse more than
1,000 Filipinos.

At Camp Crame, spirits were running high

as thousands of civilians remained to
provide a defense against attack by
government forces. Armored cars were seen
going out of the compound.

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Air Force Col. Antonio E. Sotelo, who

defected to the rebels this morning, said
three helicopters were sent out and
destroyed the five Hueys with machine gun
fire after the rebels had received intelligence
that they would be used to strike their camp.

Sotelo, the wing commander of the 15th

Strike Wing of the Philippine Air Force, also
said that one of his helicopters had fired the
rockets at the presidential palace this
morning.

At one point early in the day, rebel leader

Ramos said that Marcos' wife, Imelda, and
Ver's wife had left the country and that
Marcos himself was no longer in his
Malacanang presidential palace. Aquino
reported in a radio broadcast that she had
been told that Marcos was on his way to
Guam.

However, government television came on

the air shortly after 8:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m.
EST Sunday) and said, "The government
remains in full control of the situation." It
said Malacanang Palace was "fully secured."
On the palace grounds, preparations for
Tuesday's scheduled presidential
inauguration continued.

Crowds began celebrating what they

believed to be Marcos' defeat outside
barbed-wire barriers blocking a street
leading to the palace. About 400 people
waved flags and flashed the laban (fight)
sign with thumbs and forefingers
symbolizing the initial of Aquino's party.

Elsewhere in Manila, closer to the dissident

headquarters, other anti-Marcos crowds
poured into the streets to celebrate. The
church-backed Radio Veritas, which has
supported the rebel movement, had
announced this morning that Marcos and
the rest of his family had left the country.
The radio said Marcos and his son
Ferdinand Jr. left this morning for an
unknown destination.

"The revolution is now finished," Enrile

said.

There were reports early today that heavily

armed troops loyal to Marcos were moving
in the direction of the dissident-held
military camp on the outskirts of Manila,
but there was no evidence that they had
reached the scene.

Other troops reportedly were using tear gas

and truncheons in an attempt to disperse
crowds of civilian demonstrators who were
gathered near an adjacent military
installation. The effort was apparently
unsuccessful and a fiesta-like mood soon
returned to the scene when Enrile and
Ramos made their claims of victory.

Yesterday, Marcos had vowed to crush the

military insurrection, but in the only
confrontation that took place yesterday, a
column of marines backed down when met
by thousands of civilians who had gathered
near the camps to protect the rebels. Today
an effort to use tear gas was also
unsuccessful.

There was no other evidence that Marcos

had deployed forces loyal to him in the
capital.

There were a number of reports early today

that top-level military leaders were
defecting to the anti-Marcos forces, but few
could be confirmed in the atmosphere of
tension and confusion surrounding the
rapidly unfolding situation.

The Philippines crisis reached its explosive

stage on Saturday when Enrile and Ramos
rebelled against Marcos' leadership,
resigning their posts and calling on the
president to step aside in favor of Aquino,
his election challenger.

It was a development that directly

challenged Marcos' hold on the presidency
by threatening to split his ultimate power
base, the allegiance of the military.

In an angry television speech at midnight

today, the embattled 68-year-old president,
calling himself "an old war horse," said he
even may lead troops personally to "wipe
out" the mutineers. He rejected the rebels'
demand that he step down as president to
resolve the tense confrontation between
progovernment forces and members of a
military reform movement occupying the
camp in suburban Manila.

Marcos accused Enrile and Ramos of trying

to grab power from both his government
and the political opposition and form a
junta. Marcos also has charged that the
rebel troops wanted to stage a coup and
assassinate him and his wife, Imelda.

"It is quite clear that now they have raised

openly the flag of insurrection, the flag of
rebellion," Marcos said. "We will deal with
them as such."

"We are going to do everything to settle this

peacefully," he said. "But there is an end to
all this." He said some political opponents
and rebel troops "are saying that the
president is incapable of enforcing the law."

"They repeat that once more and I will sic

the tanks and the artillery on them," Marcos
railed. "We'll wipe them out."

Marcos added, "If they think I am sick, I

may even want to lead the troops to wipe
out this Enrile-Ramos group. I can tell you I
am as strong as ever. I am just like an old
war horse smelling powder and getting
stronger."

He also described himself as shamed and

humiliated by the rebellion and addressed
this threat to Enrile and Ramos: "If you do
not listen to my plea for a peaceful
negotiation, then let the blood of those who
will die in a confrontation be on your
conscience."

[In an interview from Manila broadcast on

NBC, Marcos was asked repeatedly whether
he would step down if asked by President
Reagan. At first he said he would not answer
speculative questions, but then he added, "If
that ever happens, I . . . let me think about
it. Let us talk about it."]

Enrile, ensconced in the heavily guarded

Camp Crame on the eastern outskirts oif the
capital, called Marcos' warning a "bluff." He
and Ramos expressed doubt that
government troops would follow orders to
launch an all-out assault against fellow
Filipino soldiers, who were barricaded
behind a "human buffer zone" of thousands
of civilians gathered outside the camp.

However, military sources said they

believed that Marcos -- facing growing
isolation at home and abroad following his
disputed "victory" in a fraud-marred
election this month -- is capable of taking
that step to remain in power.

According to a military intelligence officer

not involved in the conflict, loyalist forces
have been deployed to block reinforcements
for the rebels from the provinces. He said at
least two Philippine Army helicopters not
normally used for ground support have been
converted into gunships. In addition, he
said, two battalions from the Army's 2nd
Division under a staunchly loyal general
have been formed without Philippine
Military Academy graduates as junior
officers. The academy graduates are seen as
potentially in sympathy with the reformist
officers leading the mutiny.

Enrile said he had spoken to Marcos by

telephone yesterday for the first time since
the mutiny and had rejected an offer of
amnesty in return for ending the rebellion.
He said he told Marcos that the consensus
of a rebel officers' committee was that "the
president must step down."

Enrile said that if Marcos wants to leave the

country, such a solution could be worked
out. "There is no intention on the part of
anybody here to harm him or his family,"
Enrile said.

There was no immediate word on progress

in forming a proposed five-member
"generals' committee" to negotiate an end to
the crisis. The proposal calls for two
generals on each side to negotiate, with
retired Gen. Rafael Ileto, currently
ambassador to Thailand, as a mediator.

The archbishop of Manila, Cardinal Jaime

Sin, also has called for a peaceful solution
but has urged citizens to help achieve this by
showing support for Enrile and Ramos and
keeping mass vigils outside the rebels'
camp. This display of "people's power" was
instrumental in heading off a potential clash
yesterday when thousands of civilians
blocked government troops on the streets
leading to Camp Crame.

"Let us not be goaded into hatred and

violence," Sin said in an address over the
church-backed Radio Veritas before it
stopped broadcasting temporarily. Station
officials said saboteurs damaged a powerful
new transmitter with pickaxes, forcing the
station to use a weaker backup transmitter.

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William Branigin
William Branigin writes and edits breaking
news. He previously was a reporter on The
Post’s national and local staffs and spent
19 years overseas, reporting in Southeast
Asia, Central America, the Middle East
and Europe.

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