AQUINO VISIT HELPS HEAL RIFT IN PHILIPPINE COMMUNITY HERE

Philippine native Nina Palangdalo went to see Corazon Aquino twice this week, once when the Philippine president arrived at Andrews Air Force Base for her five-day visit here and again when a mass was held in Aquino's honor at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Yesterday, Palangdalo, a nurse in Fort Washington, said she is still reveling in a new-found sense of freedom that she and other Filipinos here have discovered since the regime of Ferdinand Marcos collapsed in Manila and Aquino took power in February.

Palangdalo, 47, who has lived in this country for nearly 20 years, said she was once afraid to reveal her opposition to Marcos even to family members when she visited them in the Philippines.

"They're loyalists," she said. "He gave them money and made them rich."

With Aquino in power, Palangdalo said she feels free to express her opinions. "The difference is I can tell you my name freely and you can quote me freely--during Marcos' time, oh my God, no."

Palangdalo and other area Philippine natives, many of whom have never been involved in politics, have turned out for a series of events this week to welcome Aquino and demonstrate support for her new government. Yesterday, several hundred participated in a rally in Lafayette Park across from the White House, where Aquino was having a lunchtime meeting with President Reagan.

A large number of this area's Filipinos, many of whom are in the U.S. military stationed at Andrews and Bolling Air Force bases, live in southern Prince George's County. The Philippine population there has been estimated at 10,000.

In addition to military officers, a large number of Filipinos who have immigrated here in the last two decades are professionals, many of them doctors and nurses. A sizable part of the local community lives in the Fort Washington, Temple Hills, Camp Springs and Oxon Hill areas, but evidence of their presence cannot be found in any commercial district such as the Vietnamese area known as Little Saigon in Arlington.

Noni Glorioso, the 32-year-old proprietor of one of the few Philippine shops in Prince George's, a Fort Washington grocery called the Nipa Hut, was at yesterday's rally selling $5 souvenir T-shirts commemorating the Aquino visit.

Back at his shop yesterday afternoon, Glorioso estimated that he sold 300 of the T-shirts this week. But he and other Filipinos interviewed yesterday said there are still a significant number of Marcos supporters in the community, and Glorioso said he treads carefully to avoid offending them. He still has a few cut-rate pro-Marcos T-shirts in the back of his shop to fill the occasional request.

"I want to be neutral," said Glorioso. "Whatever music is playing, that is the music you dance to."

The local Philippine community, with dozens of political, cultural and social associations, was deeply divided while Marcos was in power. While some Filipinos said divisions still exist, Aquino supporters have thrown the resources of their organizations into months of planning for the Aquino visit.

Armin Alforque, a D.C. systems analyst who took this week off to help coordinate the welcome for Aquino, said local Filipinos were "openly polarized" when Marcos was in power. The wounds have healed somewhat, he said, with some former Marcos partisans now supporting Aquino.

"Filipinos are becoming more aware of the need to express themselves politically," said Alforque. "In terms of providing leaders {in the local community} , there has been a changing of the guard."

Said Odette Taverna, who also helped organize yesterday's rally: "Aquino's visit has brought together a lot of organizations with a lot of different political persuasions. It's a reflection of the relationships that have matured in our own community."

For Mencie Hairston, a legal assistant from Lanham who lived for a time under martial rule in the Philippines, attending yesterday's rally for Aquino was important on an emotional level. "For me, this visit is a cathartic release," she said. "When I became old enough to vote in the Philippines, that right was taken away from me."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.