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Cauliflower (box & bag) Chopped Spinach Leal Spinach • Cooked Squash Small Whole Onions Whole Baby Carrots • Whole Strawberries Red Raspberries in tile syrup Strawberries in lite syrup Because they're Kosher for Passover. So if you want to make sure the Birds Eye While most of our delicious fruits and vegetables are Kosher and marked with a K, products you're buying are Kosher for Passover, be sure to clip this ad these Birds Eye produtts are also Kosher and take it with you when you're for Passover. However, they have no special shopping. marking to let you know. ripe; 1 1.1/2 Certified by Rabbi J.H. Ralbag GENERAL FOODS 1988 General Foods Corporation CAPITOL REPORT WOLF BLITZER Jewish Congressman Was Key In Philippines Democratic Representative Stephen Solarz of New York was clearly ahead of the curve in Washington in ' understanding the nature of the events un- folding in the Philippines. A consistent critic of former President Ferdinand Marcos, he successfully led the fight in American governmental and public opinion in support of the new President, Corazon Aquino. The Reagan Administration often viewed him as a thorn. But that has now changed. Solarz's close association with Aquino and her running mate, Salvador Laurel, is now seen by U.S. officials as clearly signifi- cant in helping to ensure a con- tinued pro-American attitude in the Philippines. The Congressman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Far East, was among the first in Wash- ington to understand that Mar- cos's days were numbered. Benigno Aquino, the longtime opposition leader and husband of the new president, had testi- fied before Solarz's panel some six weeks before his ill -fated return to Manila. It was during that testimony, in fact, that Aquino, still in political exile in the United States, had an- nounced publicly for the first time•that he was planning to go back home. He was, of course,, eventually murdered as he walked off the plane. "So my interest in the Philip- pines goes back really for quite some time now," Solarz said in an interview. "At the end of the hearing, we spoke. I had gotten to know him in the course of his exile in the United States. He was planning to go back at the beginning of August. • I was planning on being in the Philip- pines in the middle of August. He asked me to make sure to ask to meet with him when I ar- rived in Manila. He thought he would be under house arrest, at best, or in prison, at worst. He felt it was important for Marcos to know that his welfare and well-being were the source of concern to the U.S. Congress. I had planned to do so. "As fate would have it, he put off his trip for two weeks. And so I left the Philippines, after spending several days there, the day before he returned (on Aug. 21, 1985). It was clear to me at that time that Marcos's support was already slipping and the country was in deep trouble. They were on a slide toward disaster." • Solarz, who speakes on this subject with passion and auth- ority, noted that when Aquino finally returned, only to be assassinated, the situation got even worse. "I returned to the Philippines from Bangkok at the request of his family and his associates in the opposition to pay my respects and to sym- lplize American concern over what had happened. It was an incredibly moving experience for me." Laurel, who is today the new Vice President, had met Solarz at the airport and took him to Aquino's home. "There were thousands of Filipinos lined up outside, snaking around the blocks, waiting to pay their re- spects," Solarz recalled. "By the next day, when they moved his body to a neighborhood church, over a hundred thousand Fili- pinos had passed through his home." At the time, Solarz also met with Aquino's mother — "a remarkable women, about 75 at the time, but looking about 60, beautiful, eloquent and elegant. It was late in the afternoon. We They were on a slide toward disaster." went into a small room together, with little light. The skylight was fading. No air conditioning. People were fanning the air. She told me how she had pleaded with her son not to return, and how he had told her that he would rather die a meaningful death than lead a meaningless life, and how, if Marcos wanted to kill him, he could just as easily kill him in Boston as in Manila. If he was going to die, he would rather die on the soil of his own country, than on the territory of a foreign land." Since then, Solarz made it his business to get involved more actively in the entire issue of human rights and democracy in the Philippines. "I really re- solved at that time to do every- thing I could to facilitate the \ restoration of democracy and the achievement of the ideals for which Aquino had sacrificed his life." The Congressman said that one of the most important im- plications of this entire series of remarkable events leading up to Marcos's ouster was that "it demonstrated that Aquino did not die in vain, and that the cause for which he sacrificed his life has now been realized as a result of the courageous cam- paign of his wife who embodied and expressed the hopes and the aspirations of the Filipino peo- ple for democracy." Thus, already a few years ago, Solarz understood that Marcos was in deep trouble. Even befo the Feb. 7 .election, Solarz sens ed that Marcos had "clearly los the confidence of the people." A that time, of course, the Reag Administration was still unde the impression that Marcos ha considerably more residual su port than turned out to be th case. But Solarz agieed tha Marcos,. on the eve of the elec