As a parody of democracy, the scene had a certain dramatic charm. Until they were ordered into silence, hundreds of colorfully dressed spectators in the galleries of the Philippine National Assembly cheered and booed passionately as politicians on the turquoise-carpeted floor below walked through their parts. One at a time, brown envelopes containing vote totals from each of the country’s 147 voting centers were presented to the legislators for inspection. Tallies were read aloud, and results posted on green tote boards that were lined up before the 200 mahogany desks of the Assembly. Charges flew that some envelopes were improperly sealed, that entire towns had been eliminated from some of the tallying documents. Jeers and accusations rocketed back and forth, and recording the objections to all the voting certificates took hours. Inexorably, the charade moved the Philippines closer to a new turning point in a potentially explosive national drama. At week’s end the National Assembly, dominated by members of President Ferdinand Marcos’ ruling New Society Movement, produced its tally after angry opposition members walked out of the legislative hall to protest government railroad tactics. The rump gathering declared that Marcos, 68, had defeated his presidential rival, Corazon Aquino, 53, by 10,807,179 votes to 9,491,716. Thus, in a final travesty of parliamentary procedure, the Assembly formally declared that Marcos had been re-elected President, in an election whose outcome had been shaped by vote buying, intimidation, outright fraud and bloodshed. The legislative body also proclaimed the election of Marcos’ running mate, Arturo Tolentino, 75, ending weeks of speculation that the autocrat might find a way to include Aquino’s vice-presidential running mate, Salvador Laurel, 57, in his newly refurbished government. As the counting proceeded in the cool confines of the Assembly building, each vote recorded for Marcos added anger and outrage to the tension building across the far-flung archipelago. Tentatively but with increasing signs of determination, Aquino supporters were starting to take their frustrations into the streets. Wav- ing clenched fists and chanting “Fight! Fight!,” thousands of Filipinos marched in a 13-mile procession through the capital. They escorted the flag-draped coffin of Evelio Javier, 43, a regional Aquino campaign chairman who had been brutally gunned down days earlier in the province of Antique. Though far smaller in scale, the Javier funeral demonstration reminded many Filipinos of the huge outpourings of grief that followed the 1983 assassination of Aquino’s husband Benigno Aquino Jr. Meanwhile, the 104-member Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines added its powerful voice to the clamor of those who claimed that Marcos had stolen the election. After a two-day meeting, the clerics sharply attacked Marcos by asserting that “a government that assumes or maintains power through fraudulent means has no moral basis.” To those who agreed with them, the bishops issued a call for a “nonviolent struggle for justice.”
