Aquino Reports Opening of Preliminary Meetings With Communist Rebels

MANILA —  President Corazon Aquino said Tuesday that her government has begun preliminary talks with low-level Communist Party leaders in an effort to end the insurgency in the Philippine countryside.

But she conceded that her government is no closer to achieving a cease-fire than it was when she came to power.

Aquino also repeated her opposition to deposed President Ferdinand E. Marcos’ expressed desire to return to the Philippines. She said his presence would make the insurgency more difficult to control.

“I can handle the insurgency problem,” Aquino said. “And it would be better if he (Marcos) is not here, because that would only make matters worse.”

Calm and Confident

Aquino met with the foreign press Tuesday for the first time since Feb. 26, the day after she assumed office. Throughout the 45-minute session she seemed calm and confident.

She vowed that the Philippines will not repudiate any of its $26-billion foreign debt. When several of her Cabinet ministers proposed this course last week, it sent shock waves through the international banking community.

She said that relations between her civilian government and the powerful Philippine military, which helped mount the revolt that brought her to power, continue to be good. And in an effort to eliminate concern over reports that the military is increasingly dissatisfied with her government, she added, “I have full confidence and trust in the military, and certainly they have shown me much support.”

But Aquino, a former housewife who had no political experience before becoming president, was noncommittal on many subjects. In response to several technical questions on the shattered national economy, she said simply that the Cabinet is studying the matter.

Appeals for Time

When asked about the poverty that continues to afflict more than half the Philippines’ 54 million people, Aquino repeated what she had said in the January presidential campaign, that Marcos is to blame. And she appealed, as she often has since taking office, for more time to solve the problems.

“We inherited such tremendous problems,” she said. “This is only my 11th week. Perhaps it is not asking too much that we be given more time.”

She said her emissaries have been talking to Communist leaders but she provided no details of her strategy in ending the 17-year-old rebellion. Asked how she intends to persuade the estimated 16,000 rebels to surrender and how she plans to rehabilitate them afterward, she said her government cannot afford incentives and that details are still to be worked out.

Asked what her government could offer the rebels, she said, “A chance to live in freedom and not to be hounded by the military, and a chance to live with the rest of the Filipino people.”

Military on Defensive

Noting that her government has yet to sit down in meaningful negotiations with top rebel leaders, she added, “In the meantime, the military is on a defensive posture.”

Aquino said she based most of her answers on reports from members of her Cabinet. She said they are her top personal advisers. She conceded, however, that her brother, Jose Cojuangco, and the brothers of her slain husband, Benigno S. Aquino Jr., are also among her confidants.

Asked for her personal assessment of her government after nearly three months in office, she said her greatest achievement was “getting rid of Marcos.”

“If nothing else,” she said, “I think that I should be given credit for having driven Mr. Marcos from office.”

Among the other achievements she listed were her release of “all political prisoners”--although several hundred are still reported to be behind bars; the retirement of most general officers who had served beyond retirement age, and the reinstatement of habeas corpus , securing the prompt release of those in custody.

“I think another notable achievement is, finally, we Filipinos are proud to be Filipinos,” she said.