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."