Word: salonga
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...meantime the anti-Marcos forces received a boost last week when another exiled opposition leader, former Senator Jovito Salonga, 62, returned from a four-year stay in the U.S. The government had taken some of the drama from his arrival, first by dropping the subversion charges against him only two days before his homecoming, and then by inviting Salonga's family to participate with the military and other civilians in enforcing tight security precautions at the airport. Said General Hermilo Ahorro, deputy police chief: "It all went very smoothly this time...
...Salonga is described by supporters as one of the few figures who might be able to bridge the gap between moderates and radicals in the opposition, a division that has long weakened the anti-Marcos effort. Blind in one eye, deaf in one ear and carrying 100 pieces of shrapnel in his body as the legacy of a political bombing in 1971, Salonga has denied any intention of running in the next presidential election, due in 1987, unless he is drafted. Still, his modesty is usually discounted and his name included on the increasingly crowded list of would-be candidates...
...nine of the eleven major opposition leaders. Two pivotal figures, Assembly Member Eva Estrada Kalaw and former Senator Salvador Laurel, refused to sign the document, which outlined a platform and a nominating procedure in case of Marcos' sudden demise. Kalaw, leader of one wing of the Liberal Party (Salonga heads the other wing), objected to the "undemocratic process" by which the presidential nominees would be chosen. Laurel, president of the opposition umbrella group UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization), disagreed with a clause demanding the removal of U.S. military bases from the country in the absence of a plebiscite...
...Salonga has staked out a middle ground on such divisive questions. Shortly after his arrival, he noted that the current base agreement expires in 1991. "If we comply with the agreement, there is nothing sensational about the demand to have the bases taken out," he said. On the proposed legalization of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Salonga was again conciliatory. Said he, in a sentence that neatly framed the aspirations of moderates opposing the government that they hold responsible for Aquino's death: "There should be open ventilation of all opinions--except violence...
With odds like that stacked against them, all but the hardiest of Marcos' critics decided to sit out the referendum. One who spoke up, however, was former Senator Jovito Salonga, whose oratorical skills match those of Marcos. "If 90% of the population loves him," Salonga asked 300 University of the Philippines students, "why does he need martial law?" Former President Diosdado Macapagal, meanwhile, made the rounds of the city's civic clubs. "Sixty thousand people have been arrested over the past five years," Macapagal told his audiences. "Let him run in a free election...