Plan to extend Ramos term stirs uproar in Manila

Plan to extend Ramos term stirs uproar in Manila

MANILA (Reuter): A top Philippine official has unveiled plans to extend President Fidel Ramos's term into the 21st century, provoking Vice-President Joseph Estrada to declare yesterday he would lead a nationwide protest to thwart the move.

Analysts said the plan could be sharply divisive and might rekindle fears of autocratic rule akin to that of late strongman Ferdinand Marcos.

Executive Secretary Ruben Torres said on Saturday that members of the president's People Power (Lakas) party favored scrapping the constitutional provision limiting the president to one six- year term, and would try to convince Ramos to agree.

"If the demand is overwhelming, maybe he will bow to it," Torres told reporters. "Six years is really so short for a good president."

It was by far the strongest signal from the administration that Ramos, who will turn 69 next month, may still be in office in the 21st century.

Ramos tried to ease the uproar over Torres's statement. "Secretary Torres is really just stating his personal opinion because we have not taken any official stand in Lakas," he told reporters in northern Baguio city. "Let's just wait."

Ramos has denied he wants another stint in office when his current term ends in June next year, but has initiated moves to amend the constitution to clip the wings of the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month, the court set aside the sale of the historic, government-owned Manila Hotel to a Malaysian firm and, under a "Filipino First policy", awarded it instead to a local company that had lost the public bidding.

Ramos had said the decision was a slap in the face to his privatization program, the cornerstone of his economic reform agenda. Last week, he called for changes in the constitution to curb the power of what he called an "intrusive" Supreme Court.

Estrada, who has made no secret of his plans to seek the presidency and is widely regarded as the man to beat in the 1998 elections, said he would launch a nationwide campaign to oppose any charter changes.

The former movie star, who belongs to the opposition Party of the Filipino masses, warned that amending the constitution to allow Ramos to stay in power after 1998 would provoke street protests.

"If they push through the extension, there will be trouble... We will really fight it... I cannot swallow it," Estrada said, speaking in Tagalog on a private radio station.

"Only the blind cannot see the signals that the president is determined to stay in office by executing a bloodless constitutional coup on himself," the Philippine Daily Inquirer said in an editorial.

"That's what President Marcos did. The only difference is that Marcos used martial law to deliver the coup, while President Ramos is executing his coup with the fig leaf of a constitutional amendment."

Marcos was in power for 20 years until he was ousted by a popular people's movement in 1986. His successor, Corazon Aquino, included a presidential term limit in the new constitution to prevent any incumbent from staying too long in office.

Political analyst Teodoro Benigno said: "We are a democracy precisely because our leaders and our political parties...alternate peacefully to power. Disturb or disrupt that as President Marcos disrupted it when he declared martial law and you set loose a whirlwind where madmen will rule. Again."