THE PHILIPPINES: After Magsaysay, What?

From barrio to barrio, and on every city street corner, the name of Ramon Magsaysay rang across the Philippines last week. Election day was only fourweeks off, and every presidential and congressional candidate was busily tryingto identify himself with the late great President, who was killed in an airplane crash only seven months ago. “Keep faith with Magsaysay!” cried the Nacionalistas of President Carlos P. Garcia, the smooth, shrewd politician who succeeded to the presidency on Magsaysay’s death. “Magsaysay was our guy; now Yulo is our Magsaysay,” proclaimed the Liberals, ignoring the fact that Ramon Magsaysay deserted them in disgust for the Nacionalistas.

The Old Squeeze. Despite the invocation of his hallowed name, Philippine politicos seemed rapidly sloughing off the uncomfortable standards of honesty that Magsaysay had brought to Philippine political life. Within weeks of his death, President Garcia had eased Magsaysay’s dedicated young men out of the administration. It was not always done with subtlety. Minister of Labor Eleuteria Adevoso found that his salary had been cut out of the annual appropriation by the Nacionalista-controlled Congress; when he resigned, the Congress restored the appropriation for his successor. Soon there was cynical talk of politicians once again dabbling in black-market deals, of the old squeeze put on Chinese merchants who, living as aliens, are always vulnerable to threats of deportation, or special harassing regulations.

Vote buying and intimidation were back. Garcia assured his nomination by a flood of political bounty; Garcia buttons were handed out with 10-peso bills tucked inside (TIME, Aug. 12). In the campaign, the Nacionalistas have spent in quantities unmatched since the Liberals threw around more than $1,000,000 in public funds in 1953 (and lost). To counter the Nacionalistas’ largesse, the Liberals’ Presidential Candidate José Yulo has used an estimated $2,500,000 of his personal sugar fortune. Throughout the countryside, well-armed election workers were busily canvassing voters for campaign funds, with their guns suggestively visible. Complaints of pre-election fraud, terrorism and violence poured in on the Commission of Elections, which plaintively asked all candidates to limit their armed bodyguards to a maximum of four each.

Charges of corruption flew. Says Yulo: “If Garcia wins, the graft will in two years produce economic chaos and a new Communist upsurge.” Retorts Garcia: “Yulo says he is an honest man, but everyone knows he is being sued for taxes.” Actually, both Garcia and Yulo are considered personally honest. A rarity among veteran politicians, Garcia has never been accused of enriching himself in office. Even opponents have conceded that suave, handsome Yulo is “a clean drop of water in a pail of dirty Liberal mud.” Both are profoundly pro-American, but Yulo emphasizes his business experience as equipping him best to deal with the nation’s teetering economy. “If you elect me, I promise to treat you as kindly as I do the laborers on my estate,” he told one audience.

Bigger Crooks. The voters are cynical about both major parties. On one radio show, one Liberal supporter was asked why she was voting for Yulo. “Because,” came the disconcerting answer, “I have come to the conclusion that the Nacionalistas are now even bigger crooks than the Liberals.”

In the Nacionalista camp, Garcia’s Running Mate Jose Laurel Jr. was equally frank and cynical. “No matter what you do,” he told an audience of voters contemptuously, “the Nacionalistas will still control the Senate, so you had better vote for us because a Liberal candidate won’t be able to get you anything.” Young José, a second-generation Philippine politician whose father is still a potent force in the Senate, is at one and the same time the Liberals’ greatest asset and their greatest liability.

As Speaker of the House of Representatives, with powers far beyond those of Sam Rayburn in Washington, Laurel exercises a firm control over the rich congressional pork barrel. Last July President Garcia “released” some $10 million of public funds to dole-hungry Nacionalista Congressmen, and he has promised another $60 million. Much of this money goes through Laurel’s hands. But José is frowned upon by the church; he has an unsavory reputation as a hard drinker and a frequenter of nightclubs, where he has an irritable habit of picking on customers whose looks displease him. His victims are particularly annoyed by the fact that Laurel’s bodyguards protect him from justifiable retaliation.

Of all the principal candidates, Laurel alone shows a coolness toward the U.S. (“The Americans favor countries like India and Japan over us because they know we won’t go Red”). But like the others, he wants more U.S. money to stabilize the nation’s economy. Under Philippine law, separate votes are cast for President and Vice President. Many who concede Garcia will probably win the presidency think there is a good chance Laurel will be defeated by the Liberals’ Diosdado Macapagal, 47. A poor boy become lawyer and economist, Macapagal claims longtime friendship with Magsaysay despite later political differences, is ambitious and able.

Peso Sandwich. Chief outsider is Manuel P. Manahan, 41, an independent who has dedicated himself to carrying on Magsaysay’s programs. He has made the most of a physical resemblance to his hero (he has even had his campaign pictures touched up to enhance the likeness), has had an amazingly warm reception in the barrios, which he has tramped indefatigably shaking hands and making friends with backwoods voters in the Magsaysay pattern. But without a machine of his own, he is conceded only an outsider’s chance of upsetting the major candidates.

Three weeks hence, uncertain, often intimidated, frequently bewildered, the Filipino voter will troop to the polls. His trip might be halted by party workers passing out “peso sandwiches”−a couple of crisp bills pressed between two sample ballots. His vote may or may not be counted. As of this week, there was no indication that he would get a proper answer to the question he asked when his beloved Ramon Magsaysay died. The question was and is: “Who will take care of us now?”