Laurel Rejects Aquino’s Proposal for ‘Grand Coalition’

MANILA —  Former Senator Salvador Laurel today rejected the proposal of Corazon Aquino for a “grand coalition” of opposition parties to contest the February presidential elections.

He said his own proposal that they both run on the ticket of his United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) is the only way to form a united opposition slate to run against President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

But Laurel said it is now too late to form a UNIDO ticket with Aquino as the presidential candidate. He said he will file his candidacy for the presidency later today. “I think her mind is made up” about running under her own party credentials, he said.

Laurel continued that “the door is still open” for a reversal of the proposed ticket--with Aquino running for vice president and he in the top spot under the UNIDO banner. Aquino has said that she will not seek the vice presidency.

Aquino’s proposal, Laurel said, would mean that she would be running for president under the banner of her own new opposition grouping, called Laban ng Bayan (Fight and Country), and he would contest the vice presidency under UNIDO’s symbols. Under electoral law, a vote for her would not automatically be a vote for him, Laurel noted to a breakfast forum.

“What kind of coalition is that?” he said. “It does not solve the problem.”

If both run under UNIDO, he said, the party would likely be designated as the dominant opposition party for the elections, permitting it to appoint ballot examiners on election day, a safeguard against possible fraud. If he and Aquino run under different party labels, Laurel said, the question of the dominant opposition party would be confused and neither group might be designated.

Even with two opposition candidates facing Marcos in the Feb. 7 elections, “chances are still very bright,” he asserted.

Aquino on Sunday proposed the formation of a “grand coalition” of opposition parties in an effort to restore unity efforts that were seemingly shattered by Laurel’s announcement earlier Sunday that he would not be her vice presidential running mate.

Her supporters were shaken by Laurel’s announcement, but they insisted that divisions between the two opposition leaders can be resolved and a single slate formed to face Marcos in his bid for a new six-year term.

Laurel said Sunday that his unity talks with Aquino collapsed and that he had “no choice but to decline her offer to run as her vice president.”

Laurel, a senator in the pre-martial-law Congress, and Aquino, wife of assassinated opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., both spoke Sunday of the need for personal sacrifices in the search for unity.

In a short statement read at her Manila home, Aquino said: “I regret . . . that we have been so far unable to agree on the conditions under which this unified team can become a reality. I remain optimistic that we who offer ourselves as the hope of this nation will rise to the occasion and finally and unconditionally make the sacrifices demanded of us.”

In an effort to resolve the partisan problems that stymied the expected announcement of a joint ticket, Aquino suggested enlarging the opposition tent. She said that her party, Laban ng Bayan, “has authorized me to extend to . . . Laurel an invitation that we register an Aquino-Laurel ticket for president and vice president under a new grand coalition.”

Pleading exhaustion, Aquino would answer no questions from reporters.

Five hours earlier, at the home of his brother, Laurel insisted that he had made a sacrifice for unity. He said that he and Aquino had met eight times since Marcos proposed the elections on Nov. 3.

“I suggested a number of proposals and formulas but to no avail,” he said. “But time was running out. Our leaders all over the nation were getting impatient and restless. Someone had to make the sacrifice. . . . I agreed to give way to Mrs. Aquino.”

The Laurel news conference had been billed by some expectant Aquino supporters as an announcement by both candidates that they would form a single ticket with Aquino at the top.

Members of the Laurel’s party jammed the patio news conference, unsure what their standard bearer would say.

They applauded when he recalled that he had accepted UNIDO’s presidential nomination in June. They cheered when he said that he had “offered to make the sacrifice,” to take the second spot on a unity ticket.

And they thundered when he said continuing differences “left me no choice but to decline her offer to run as her vice president. . . . And so without further ado, (today) I am filing my certificate of candidacy for the presidency of our republic.”

Aquino was not present at Laurel’s press conference. Both candidates agreed that their talks broke down at the last minute over the question of party labels for a combined ticket, but both told differing versions of the negotiations.

Aquino said that Laurel wanted both to run under the banner of UNIDO. She said she told him that she was obliged to run under the banner of Laban ng Bayan as well. “Laurel agreed,” Aquino said.

Laurel said that Aquino had agreed to run on a UNIDO ticket, then changed her mind Sunday morning, which he called “a sudden and unexpected refusal.”

Homobono Adaza, a member of the Philippine National Assembly and an Aquino supporter, said there was a “misunderstanding” on both sides.

Laurel has argued that UNIDO, which did well in a strong opposition showing in the 1984 parliamentary elections, has the superior organization. He said Sunday that he could not “sacrifice the very people who have worked so hard all these years . . . to put up the political machine that can topple the Marcos dictatorship.”

While Laurel, 58, and UNIDO are regarded as a combination that can deliver the votes, Aquino, 52, is conceded to be a candidate who can win. But her coalition, an amalgam of eight parties and groups ranging from the political center to the left, rides mainly on her personal appeal, its organization being uncertain and untested.

The deadline for filing candidacies for president and vice president is Wednesday. No new talks between Laurel and Aquino have been announced, but despite Laurel’s decision to file for president, both camps say that further efforts to form a unified ticket are likely.