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Aquino, in Japan, receives promise of financial support
Philippine President Corazon Aquino in Tokyo in November, 1986.
By Hal Drake | Stars and Stripes November 12, 1986
TOKYO — Philippines President Corazon Aquino prepared Tuesday for talks with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone after getting a loan commitment of $247 million in construction aid for her financially ailing country.
Aquino spoke with Nakasone at the Akasaka Guest House for about an hour late Monday. The two said, as a joint statement was issued, that 40.4 billion yen had been granted in low interest loans and will be used for a power plant project on. Luzon. In the statement, Nakasone pledged that Japan would fully support "the new nation-building efforts of the government of the Philippines led by President Aquino."
During a four-day state visit here, Aquino was expected to ask the prime minister for heavy commitments of aid and credit, needed to help her country out of a $26 billion foreign deficit.
Aquino arrived in Tokyo Monday afternoon. Her Philippine Airlines jetliner, national colors posted on the nose, landed just after 1 p.m. at Tokyo International Airport at Haneda.
Only a few officials and newsmen were in a crowd kept deliberately thin by tight security.
Aquino came down a portable passenger ramp, shook a few hands and made no statement. She walked to one of three helicopters that had taxied up beforehand, moving briskly as four howitzers tended by white-gloved Japan Self-Defense Force troops thumped off a slow, blank-charge salute.
She was then lifted away, no more than three or four minutes after she was off the plane.
Two hours later, Aquino was greeted by Nakasone and Emperor Hirohito at the State Guest House, a gray stone edifice fronted by a wide stone courtyard. An honor guard marched out in drumbeat precision.
Aquino came down the steps with the 85-year-old monarch as both national anthems were played.
As Aquino passed close to a crowd of Filipino residents of Tokyo, flags and pennants were held up and waved. Looking intent and preoccupied, the president walked on and didn't return the greeting. She then moved down a reception line of diplomats and government officials.
Before leaving Manila, Aquino warned that she would call her citizens into the streets to counter, in a popular uprising, any attempts to unseat her while she is in Japan. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos, chief of staff of her armed forces, ordered his troops on full alert — an action that followed rumors that a coup was planned.
