Message from Garcia

Abed with a back ailment last autumn, President Carlos Garcia had ample time to ponder the stunning election defeats his Nationalist a Party candidates had suffered in the major cities. By all accounts, a major crisis of conscience occurred, for the more sophisticated city voters (whose votes cannot as easily be bought as in the rural barrios) were protesting the Garcia government's record of influence-peddling, nepotism and mismanagement. "Will my grandchildren think I was a good President?" Garcia asked an aide. Manila cynics suggested that another question was running through his mind: Will the voters think so at the next election?

The answer just might be discouraging. So Garcia began acting differently. When his Defense Secretary, Alejo Santos, was charged with smuggling gifts past customs after a trip abroad. Garcia ordered an investigation instead of brushing it away with his usual benign air. Then he called Nacionalista leaders together to say that corruption was so common that "no less than a total effort is necessary to reduce this social cancer to a minimum."

Sure enough, when Garcia heard details of a swindle in the government's farm-credit agency, he fired all the top directors and installed a nonpolitical board of governors. He did the same with the government-run National Marketing Corp. Next he turned to the Cabinet itself, firing Secretary of Commerce Pedro Hernaez, the party treasurer, whose strategic position made him an ideal political fund raiser among businessmen. He also fired Finance Secretary Jaime Hernandez, whose job included the granting of dollar import licenses. As new Finance Secretary he named energetic Economist Dominador Aytona, 41. budget commissioner under the late incorruptible President Ramon Magsaysay. Aytona has already turned up 50 million pesos ($25 million) worth of questionable transactions, and has proposed indicting 50 customs employees.

"President Garcia has at last awakened to the fact that good government is the best politics," said the Manila Times. "Personally, I want to retire from politics," said Garcia last week, "but my personal interests are subordinate to the national interest." He obviously also thought that there would be little national interest in him unless he and the government reformed.

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