of Nancy Reagan. But this can hardly be literally true. It just felt as if there was a lot of Nancy in evidence. Another of the rooms had a grand piano. I sat down. “Can you play?” said my companion. “ A little,” I exaggerated. I can play Bach’s Prelude in C, and this is what I proceeded to do, but my companion had obviously hoped for something more racy. The keys were stiff. I wondered if the piano was brand new. A soldier came in, carrying a rifle. “ Please cooperate,” he said. The soldier looked just as overawed by the place as we were. We cooperated. S om e b o d y asked Marcos whether he was going to leave the country. “No, ” he said, “as you can see, we are all still here. ” And as he said these words he turned round to discover that there was absolutely nobody standing behind him. When I returned down the service stairs, I noticed that the green jade plates had gone, but there was still some Evian water to be had. I was very thirsty, as it happened. But the revolution had asked me to cooperate. So I did. Outside, the awe had communicated itself to several members of the crowd. They stood by the fountain looking down at the coloured lights beneath the water, not saying anything. I went to the parapet and looked across the river. I thought: somebody’s still fighting; there are still some loyal troops. Then I thought: that’s crazy—they can’t have started fighting now. I realized that I was back in Saigon yet again. There indeed there had been fighting on the other side of the river. But here it was fireworks. The whole city was celebrating. That Morning-After Feeling Q ^ ^ r i t t i n g at our table was a politician who had supported the Aquino campaign and who was now fuming: there had been no consu ltation with the UNIDO members of parliament about the formation of the new cabinet. He himself, he said, had told the Aquino supporters that he did not want a job. But they would find that they needed the cooperation of the parliament to establish the legitimacy of their new government. Parliament had proclaimed Marcos president. Parliament would therefore have to unproclaim him before Cory could be de jure as well as de facto head of state. She could have a revolutionary, de facto government if she wanted. But in that case her power was dependent on the military. She would be vu lne rab le . The p o lit ic ia n was haunted by the fear that corrupt figures would again be put in key positions, and that the whole thing would turn out to have been some kind or sordid switch. The television announcers were congratulating the nation on the success of People’s Power. But all three of us at the table were wondering how real People’s Power was. The previous night, Enrile had made a most extraordinary speech on the television. It had come in the form of a crude amateur video. It looked, in a way, like the plea of some kidnap victim, as if he were being forced to speak at gun-point. And * I t seemed to me that in every room I saw, practically on every available surface, there was a signed photograph o f Nancy Reagan. But this can hardly be literally true. what he had said was so strange that now, the morning after, I wondered whether I had dreamed it. So far I’d not met anyone else who had seen the broadcast. Enrile had begun, as far as I remember, by saying that Marcos was now in exile, and that he, Enrile, was sorry. He had not intended things to turn out this way. But he wanted to thank the President (he still called him the President) for not attacking the rebel soldiers when they first went to Camp Aguinaldo. At that time (and here I am referring to a partial text of the speech) “The military under his control, or the portion of the military under his control, had the firepower to inflict heavy damage on us.” But it did not do so. “And for that alone, I would like to express my gratitude to the President. As officers and men of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, we want to salute him for that act of compassion and kindness that he extended to us all.” I asked Helen and the po litic ian whether they had heard this, and they hadn’t. By coincidence, at that very moment, the television in the foyer broadcast an extract from the speech. The politician was shocked. “ He’s only been gone a few hours, and already the rehabilitation has begun.” I then tried out my theory on the others. When I had woken that morning, the theory was there, fully formed, in my head. In a way I had been quite startled to find it there, so complete and horrible. The theory went like this. We had all assumed that Marcos was losing touch with reality. In fact he had not lost his marbles at all. He had seen that he had to go, and that the only way out for a dictator of his kind was exile. The point was to secure the succession. It could not go to General Ver, but Marcos was under an obligation to Ver, and therefore he could not hand over the presidency to anybody else. In some way, whether explicitly or by a nod and a wink, he had told Enrile and Ramos: you may succeed me if you dare, but in order to do so you must overthrow me and Ver. You must rebel. If you do so, the bargain between us will be: I protect you from Ver, and you protect me; if you let me go with my family after my inauguration, I will permit you to rebel. Marcos was writing his legend again, and the legend was: he was the greatest president the Philippines had ever known. Then his most trusted son, Enrile, rebelled; Marcos could easily have put 46 Clinton St. Quarterly—Spring, 1988
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