PRESIDENT MARCOS TAKES ABSOLUTE POWERS

Marcos of the Philippines has taken extraordinary personal powers and proclaimed a new constitution as an expression of 'the people's will.

In addition to his presidential status, Marcos is now premier and has taken over all the powers of the legislature under the new charter, announcing also the indefinite continuation of martial law.

This action, he said, was necessary 'to protect the people and the republic'. The new decrees were signed into law in front of a hastilysummoned so-called people's congress of 4,000 delegates.

The seizure of absolute has supposedly been ratified by assemblies throughout the country-voting on a show of hands under the weapons of Marcos's ubiquitous retainers.

Announcing his sweeping constitutional upheaval, Marcos said he was accepting the informal vote of the citizens' assemblies and would not now bother staging the planned secret-ballot plebiscite on the constitutional changes.

According to government spokesmen, the six days of voting at public meetings up and down the country had shown 'overwhelming approval' of the continuation of martial law, adoption of the new charter, cancellation of the secret ballot and suspension of elections for the next SIx or seven years.

General elections under the old constitution were to have been held in October, and Marcos's term as president would have expired on December 31. Now he has full powers rule by decree.

He will hold another set of general elections if and when he feels like it. He told the people's congress: 'We are engaging in a peaceful and constitutional revolution to return sovereignty to the people' One of his opponents, senator Lorenzo Tanada, made a last-ditch effort to prevent the constitutional change by having the Supreme Court declare Marcos's action illegal.

Tanada argued in the court that the show-of-hand votes on the new constitution were unofficial and claimed Marcos was acting illegally by accepting them. But the court was still sitting when Marcos declared the new constitution in effect.

The court proceedings were halted as its members were unsure of their positions and authority under the new situation. Chief Justice Robert ConTwo young Maoists captured after a shoot-out in which two of their comrades and a police inspector were killed. Left: Marcos. cepcion said he was not sure whether the court organized under the old charter could continue to exist.

Marcos's action consolidates his already immense power. Last September he first took arbitrary powers—naturally on a "temporary' basis-to deal with what he claimed was an outbreak of internal subversion.

Since then prominent Filipino intellectuals and opponents of the regime have been arrested and held without trial and in many cases have simply disappeared into army camps.

Marcos, who is a faithful supporter of the United States and an anti-communist of longstanding, is the only man to have won the Philippines presidency twice. But his second term, which began in 1969, has proved to be a time of crisis.

Rising prices continued unchecked, though the president was boosted in the Press as the man who would get the economy back on its feet. At the same time, political violence and corruption continued to flourish.

Students demonstrated on the streets against the effects of economic decline. Left-wing insurgents, the heirs of the Huks, stepped up their activity and there were violent clashes between minority Moslems and Christians in the southern When Pope Paul visited Manila in 1970 to give the predominantly Catholic regime the Vatican's accolade, the visit was marred by an attempt on the life of the pontiff.

Marcos tried to turn away unfavourable publicity by boasting that he had helped to foil the attempt with a karate chop on the would-be assassin, Bolivian painter Benjamin Mendoza y Amor.

The move towards untrammelled personal power began in August 1971 when the President announced he was taking special powers to detain without trial people suspected of subversive or rebellious activities.

There was widespread opposition to the move and there has since been a notable growth of the underground opposition movement led by the Maoist New : People's Army.

Ferdinand Marcos's political career has been marked by extreme ruthlessness even for the stop-at-nothing traditions of the Philippine ruling class. His first big coup was a successful appeal to the Supreme Court against charges of murdering a political opponent of his father.

Then came the war and Japanese occupation, and Marcos organized guerrilla resistance with the backing of US imperialism. He collected 27 medals and the Americans recognized a coming man when they •set up the Asian republic in 1946.

He rose first within the ruling Liberal Party, but found his way to the presidential palace blocked by President Diosado Macapagal, head of one of the rival political gangster outfits.

Finally he left the party in 1964 to join the Nacionalistas who were prepared to offer him a presidential nomination. In 1965 he beat Macapagal in a ruthless campaign which led to widespread charges of forgery, bribery, landgrabbing and political assassination.

One of Marcos's key platforms was the so-called rice self-sufficiency programme, an extension of the much-heralded Green Revolution to the Philippines. New strains of rice were imported with American assistance and improved harvests won Marcos some popularity.

A little man with a reputation as a keen hunter and golfer, Marcos is said to have had a sliver of holy wood implanted in his back by a priest to protect him from being killed.

With his wife Imelda, a former beauty queen who was once Miss Manila, he lives in great luxury. When he took office for the second time, the President magnanimously donated all his wealth to the nation.

But there was no discernible drop in his standard of living, though he was reputed to be one of the richest men in the republic, paying declared income tax at the rate of £26,000 a year.

When he announced his gift, however, there was no reference to the holdings of Imelda or the rest of the Marcos family.

Smuggling, corruption, urban violence and guerrilla struggle in the countryside have intensified. At the same time the Philippines have been turned into the largest US base in south-east Asia.

At Subic Bay the American aircraft carriers are refuelled after weeks on station in the Tonkin gulf bombing and shelling North Vietnam. And the Philippines is also home base to much of the US B52 bomber fleet.

Marcos, who likes to think of himself as an Asian statesman, took the Philippines into the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN) alongside Indonesia, Malaya, Thailand and Singapore.

Despite obviously planted stories in the US Press to the effect that the State Department disapproves of Marcos's seizure of personal power, there is little doubt that his regime has full US backing.

It is worth noting that his is the third US client state in Asia where personal dictatorship has recently been proclaimed. The others are Thailand and South Korea. All three regimes are regarded as staunch allies of the American government.

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