After the dawn

Democracy's finest victory in almost a decade came more quickly and less bloodily than anybody, including the woman who won it, would have dreamed possible a week ago. Cory Aquino's ejection of Ferdinand Marcos from the Philippine presidency is a testimony to the strength of her countrymen's feeling that the president they chose by the ballot-box should be the president they got. It is also a reminder, at the end of a happy February of falling dictators, of the uses to which a powerful America can put its authority. But if the Filipinos are not to waste what Manila's Cardinal Jaime Sin has called their new dawn, they must chance some bad habits that 20 years of life under Mr Marcos have helped accustom them to. The West can do a thing or two to help.