Word: laurels
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During the precampaign maneuvering, Cardinal Sin met several times with Aquino and the other major opposition candidate, Salvador ("Doy") Laurel. The primate reassured Aquino that she could successfully challenge Marcos, and helped persuade Laurel to bury his own presidential aspirations and become her running mate. Sin tactfully refrained from endorsing the ticket in public, but there was no doubt about which candidate the church backed. Before the election, the Cardinal sent a letter to all Philippine parishes pointedly instructing the faithful to vote for those who showed "respect for human rights and life...
...other times, such tactics might have prevailed, but the mighty Marcos machine was running against a totally unconventional movement. The Aquino campaign, long on enthusiasm and short on organization, sometimes resembled a political Woodstock. As Aquino and her vice-presidential nominee, Salvador ("Doy") Laurel, crisscrossed 68 provinces, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos from all walks of life swarmed to hear the presidential challenger repeat a simple talk. At each stop, Aquino related the alleged suffering her family had endured at the hands of the Marcos government, culminating in her husband's 1983 assassination. She capped each speech with a slogan...
Public support for Aquino reached a spectacular climax three days before the balloting, at the challenger's final rally. The gathering easily ranked among the largest in Philippine history. An enormous crush of humanity flocked to Manila's Rizal Park to hear Aquino and Laurel make their concluding speeches. A sea of yellow T shirts and banners, reflecting Aquino's campaign color, overflowed the sprawling harbor-front park. Yellow ticker tape and confetti rained down from office buildings surrounding the capacious square. < In contrast to earlier Aquino rallies, which had had a decidedly homespun air, an array of professional singing...
Later in the day, Marcos held his own concluding rally at Rizal Park. A horde of workers had descended on the area and replaced yellow-and-green Aquino-Laurel posters with red-white-and-blue placards extolling Marcos and his running mate, Arturo ("Turing") Tolentino, 75. Buses and flatbed trucks full of New Society faithful rolled in from outlying suburbs. Estimates of the crowd in the area ranged as high as 500,000. Many of those gathered for the extravaganza admitted openly that they had been paid from $2.50 to $5 to attend. As the time approached for the scheduled...
Marcos enjoys several significant advantages even before the balloting begins. His K.B.L. Party has a campaign war chest of $160 million, six times the amount Corazon Aquino and Laurel have at their disposal. Marcos commands the armed forces, whose troops serve as peacekeepers, and he appoints the Commission on Elections. Most important, perhaps, the President and his supporters own all five television stations in the country, and have imposed a virtual blackout on coverage of the Aquino campaign...