[Reuters]

Published date: 3rd Mar 1988

3 April 1988

Reuters News

English

(c) 1988 Reuters Limited

MANILA, April 3, Reuter – Coup leader Colonel Gregorio Honasan’s escape from captivity on Saturday has dramatically revived threats to Philippine President Corazon Aquino’s power, analysts said.

“Honasan’s escape couldn’t have occurred at a less convenient moment for Aquino,” an Asian diplomat said.

Aquino is scheduled to visit China from April 14 on her first overseas trip since November 1986.

Crucial talks on the future of the two U.S. military bases in the Philippines open on Tuesday.

The same day about 100 top-ranking Japanese businessmen are scheduled to arrive in Manila to review Tokyo’s flagging investments in the cash-strapped country.

“Everything has received a setback,” the diplomat said. “If the country’s most wanted man can slip through the government’s hands so easily, embarrassing questions about the Philippines’ stability are going to be asked again.”

Since August, when Honasan led the most serious of five coup attempts Aquino has faced in her two-year rule, the embattled president has moved to end unrest among her troops.

She pushed through a 60 per cent pay rise for the 160,000-strong military and replaced Armed Forces Chief Fidel Ramos in a reshuffle of top military posts.

Late last month she retired 30 generals, streamlined command structures and demanded “more soldiers behind guns and less behind desks” in the fight against communist rebels.

“I myself now feel more comfortable. I can plan now for the future,” Aquino told reporters last week.

But political analysts said the future seemed clouded after Honasan’s apparently easy getaway from a prison ship.

The escape soured government jubilation over last week’s capture of three high-ranking communist leaders on the 19th anniversary of the insurgency.

Analysts said the grim-faced Aquino had sounded almost querulous in a televised statement on Saturday evening.

Revealing that court-martial proceedings against Honasan had been about to begin, she said the coup leader had been given humane treatment. “But what have we received in return? We have received continuing betrayal,” she said.

An Asian military analyst said Aquino’s warning to the military not to aid Honasan, and fears voiced by a military spokesman that Honasan and troops loyal to him might mount another revolt, had only helped to heighten public anxiety.

“The way Honasan has been handled from the beginning was so mushy,” the analyst said. “He was not kept in a high-security military prison, lived in style on the prison ship at taxpayers’ expense, and was allowed frequent visits by his family.”

Francisco Nemenzo, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, said young middle-ranking officers sympathetic to Honasan were unimpressed by Aquino’s leadership changes.

“It’s the colonels who count. They are the ones who command the troops in the field. And I’m afraid they are not Aquino’s men,” Nemenzo said. “No amount of reshuffling of generals will alter the balance of forces in the military.”

A Western diplomat said he did not think Honasan would make any quick moves against the government.

“He will regroup his men, unleash a propaganda barrage, and choose a moment when the government makes some big mistake to strike, if at all,” the diplomat said.

Nemenzo said Aquino had not yet been able to be effective.

“This government is racing against time. If it can’t stabilise soon it can never prove its capacity to change people’s lives,” he said.