i^Jam e s Fenton, international writer in residence at The Loft, was presen t at the fall o f Saigon. Recently he fo u n d h im se l f drawn to the Philippines j u s t as President Marcos called a “snap election." Though d isappointed to be there with the rest o f the world press, Fenton pursued his own s tory and sudden ly fo u n d h im se l f am idst an exciting chapter o f Philippine history. This excerpt is from the tail o f a much longer accoun t which appeared in G ran ta 18. Maximum Tolerance “ M 1 1 arcos,” said the taxi-man, “ is in Guam.” “ Bullshit,” I replied. “ I saw him on the television late last night. About one-thirty. He can’t be already in Guam.” “ It was probably a recording,” said the taxi-man. He was the type I would normally have assumed to be working for the secret service. “So where did you get this information?” “Oh,” he said conspiratorially, “military sources.” He tuned in to the rebel radio. Unconfirmed reports, said a voice, have it that Marcos has been seen arriving in Guam. “ I think we’d better go to Malacanang as quickly as possible,” I said. The soldiers at the gates were wearing white arm-bands. Journalists had been asking them what these were for, but the soldiers weren’t talking. Everyone looked faintly shifty. I met an old colleague I’d last seen in Korea. “ You’ve heard o f course,” he said, “ Marcos is already in Guam.” He had some more convincing details. We asked the commanding officer if we could come in. By now a small crowd had gathered and the soldiers were getting nervous. They moved us gently back down the street as a couple of limousines came in through the gates. Then a very confident journalist arrived and said to the commanding officer: “General Ramos has called us to a press conference here. Perhaps you will let us through.” The man let us through and through we rushed. “What was that?” we asked this fine man. “Oh,” he said, “ I made it up. I was just bullshitting him.” Something very odd was happening. Where the vegetable garden had been (it had been planted on Imelda’s instructions, as part of some pet scheme), they were now laying a lawn. And the sculpture garden too—all the concrete statues were being smashed and carried away. The workers watched us as we passed. There were tanks by the next gate, and the security check was still in operation. “ It ’s extraordinary, isn’t it,” someone said, “ the way they keep going on as if nothing had happened. That platform— they must have been told to put it up for the inauguration. Now Marcos has gone and they’ re still putting it up.” As we came through security, a voice began to speak over the public address. It was giving instructions to the military to confine itself to the use of small arms in dealing with attacks. It was outlining Marcos’s supposed policy of the whole election campaign—Maximum Tolerance. “Whose voice is that?” I asked. “ It’s Marcos. It must be a recording.” We ran up the grand staircase and turned right into the ante-room. And there sat Marcos himself, with Imelda and the family all around him, and three or four generals to the right. They had chosen the ante-room rather than the main hall, for there were only a few jour44 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
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