Asian Nicaragua in Philippines Seen by Marcos if Aquino Wins
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MANILA — President Ferdinand E. Marcos said today that if Corazon Aquino defeats him in the Feb. 7 special presidential election, the Philippines would become an Asian version of Nicaragua.
A palace press release said Marcos described as “dangerously naive” Aquino’s statements that, if elected, she will grant amnesty to Communist rebels in the New Peoples Army and legalize the Communist Party of the Philippines if it disavows violence.
“The fact is the insurgents believe themselves to be riding the crest of a revolutionary tide,” Marcos said. “They would be more inclined to offer their own amnesty to those ‘bourgeois reformers’ soft-minded enough to try and make peace with them.”
Marcos said he feared Aquino would share power with the rebels in a coalition government, “merely the first step in our country’s transformation into the Southeast Asian Nicaragua.”
Meanwhile, Labor Minister Blas Ople told a group of journalists that “the Communists and the Americans are fighting for control of Cory Aquino.” Ople said the American critics of Marcos have the edge for the present.
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