it did not do so. “And f<5r 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 down the rebellion, but he still loved his son, he loved the Filipino people and he could not bear to shed their blood. It was a tragic and dignified conclusion. The theory explained why Marcos had shown himself, on the television, overruling Ver. It explained why there had been so little actual fighting. And it explained the striking fact that no rebel troops had been brought anywhere near the palace until after Marcos had left. I asked the politician what he thought, and his first reaction was: “ It’s too clever.” But then you could see the theory, with all its ramifications, getting a grip on him, until he said: “My God, I hope you’re wrong.” Helen was prepared to believe the theory. When I put it to Fred, he brooded over it darkly. His own theory that day was slightly different. “ It was scripted,” he said, “ the whole thing was scripted by social scientists.” His idea was that this was a copy-book peaceful revolution designed to be held up to other countries all around the world in order to dissuade people from taking up armed struggle. One way or another, the people I met the day after Marcos left were incapable of trusting the reality of the events they had witnessed. Not all of them believed the theory, but very few of them could muster a concrete argument against it. It was absolutely possible to believe that, instead of joining the revolution, Enrile and Ramos had hijacked it. And everyone was clearly still in the habit of believing in the genius of Marcos, however much they hated him. Of course by now it looks different. We know that the flight of Marcos could not have been a clever fix, because the question of Marcos’s wealth was obviously so badly botched. But still one could argue that the theory conta ins a core of atavistic truth. We know that Enrile, after he joined Cory’s camp, continued to think of Marcos as President. We know he felt he had to make a tribute to Marcos’s “compassion and kindness.” The son saw that he had to kill the father. The father saw the son preparing to kill him. And he knew that this was inevitable. He knew that he had to die. Artist Margaret Chodos-lrvine lives in Seattle. She recently illustrated Ursula LeGuin’s book Always Coming Home. FILM SCHEDULE Sunday Films 8:30 PM 11/23 The Last Picture Show 11/30 Starman 12/7 A Streetcar Named Desire 12/14 Superman 12/21 Psycho 12/28 African Queen 1/4 Repo Man 1/11 The Razor’s Edge 1/18 Rear Window 1/25 Seven Percent Solution 2/1 Midnight Express 2/8 The Right Stuff 2/15 Performance 2/22 Joe Hamburgers featured on Sundays Light Meals Evenings 2601 Northwest Vaughn Street Portland, Oregon 97210 . 223-3302 < BREITENBUSH^VQ F / COMMUNITY F HEALING RETREAT CONFERENCE CENTER HEALING: A place to get away, relax, eat delicious organic vegetarian meals. Geothermally heated rustic cabins. Hot mineral springs. $25-30/person per day. RETREATS: A wild river, old growth forest, cross country skiing on trails & logging roads, signs of deer & elk, Northern Spotted Owls. CONFERENCES: Many different kinds of conferences & workshops are already scheduled for the next year. 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