Word: aquinos
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...three years before Corazon Aquino rode a wave of national anger to become President of the Philippines, one of the country's most astute political observers made an eerily prescient assessment. "So she becomes the rallying point," he said. "Immediately, corruption will increase. Everybody will feather his nest. At that point, she will be nudged to the side and be made a scapegoat for the mess. Then the military will take over. They will say, 'Well, we've given you your chance.' But they will have made sure she would fail. They will then throw her to the people...
...Manila's financial district squeaked away from a showdown that might have turned it into a Southeast Asian Beirut, the President essayed a show of strength by reaching for the People Power that brought her to office. Still, in tacit disobedience to Aquino's stand against a negotiated end to hostilities, her military did not so much quell the coup as reconcile with those who had come closer than ever to unseating her. Even before the latest coup ended, plots were being hatched for the next stage of the rebellion, one the planners are certain will bring about Aquino...
Just as she has done after every other major coup attempt, the President displayed resolve and dispatch. Aquino peremptorily summoned the country's Senators to Malacanang Palace and bluntly presented them with her declaration of a national state of emergency, the closest thing to martial law that the constitution allowed her to impose. At the People Power rally, Aquino, dressed in her trademark yellow, delivered her toughest speech to date, praising loyalists and accusing her political enemies of colluding with the mutineers. She specifically mentioned Vice President Salvador Laurel, opposition Senator Juan Ponce Enrile and her cousin Eduardo Cojuangco...
...Aquino has always been reluctant to follow through on her shows of strength, which she equates with her predecessor Marcos. In the past, every display of post-rebellion resolve has been followed by inconsistency and a return to bureaucratic procrastination. Unfortunately, Aquino's devotion to constitutional principles is "part of the reason she is perceived as being weak," says Elliot Richardson, former U.S. Attorney General, who is now U.S. special representative for the Multilateral Assistance Initiative, an international program that has obtained pledges of $3.5 billion in development aid for the Philippines from a score of countries and institutions...
...President may not know what to do with the military. For the past four years, Aquino has depended on the loyalty of Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos to keep the armed forces in line. But Ramos' response to every rebellion has been to patch up relations between the various military factions and restore the uneasy status quo between reformist officers and old-line, self-interested generals. Aquino can no longer afford that kind of detente. Moreover, it has not worked. If she cannot impose civilian authority on the armed forces, then her government may be sidelined into irrelevancy as rival military...