Posts tagged with economy

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February 27, 2011

25th Anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution

It has been two days, but I still feel the need to post this belated entry about the 25th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution.

One thing that is apparent in the public opinion is either disinterest, especially among the youth many of whom had not been born during those times (watch this video of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism to see how random ordinary students fared when asked about the 1986 Revolution) or disillusionment. The disappointment is real because indeed, the socio-economic and political conditions that spawned the uprising is the same. Twenty-five years later, we are almost no better than we were before (of course, I’m not saying this as a matter of experience, having been born after 1986).

Another thing that is readily apparent in all the government-sponsored revelries is the malicious and conscious effort of the ruling class to reduce the commemoration of the revolution into a middle class pageantry instead of recognizing the militant and collective execution of the uprising causing the overthrow of the dictator. In all irony, the message of the government in all the Presiden’t speeches and the mainstream mass media in many of their news stories is that there is no need for another popular uprising, and that the very acts that constituted the revolution, the militant and collective mobilizations of citizens into the streets, are now irrelevant. The revolution for social change, according to them, can now be executed through the government and through charity and tamed voluntary work.

Tonyo Cruz in his article at the Asian Correspondents made a similar observation.

The traditional politicians know People Power is a most potent tool in the people’s arsenal, along with strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and other mass actions. That is why they routinely tell us that People Power is passe, archaic, outdated. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had every reason to berate People Power. She knew full well that she was a legitimate target, considering the level of hatred her misrule had inspired among the public.

…The traditional political elite and their mass media cannot even make their minds on how to tell and retell the story of EDSA and the long fight against Marcos. The focus are on icons and shrines, on names and faces of media-manufactured personalities, as if the uprising could have succeeded with only them acting by their their lonesome. The official list of state-canonized EDSA heroes is relatively short and is a continuing insult to the PEOPLE who comprised People Power from 1972 until 1986, and from 1998-2001.

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October 15, 2008

Sipag at Tiyaga ++

[This is my simple contribution to Blog Action Day 2008.]

The most prevalent idea being perpetuated by mass media and other traditional establishments with regards to how poverty could be solved is the notion that it’s all up to the individual’s hard work and perseverance. Nasa sipag at tiyaga lang ‘yan. Kayod lang nang kayod. Mag-trabaho lang nang mag-trabaho. Dadating din ang asenso.

To reinforce this idea, it’s not seldom that we are made witnesses to countless life stories of individuals who rose from poverty rags-to-riches style. Just this weekend, over ABS-CBN, we are made audience to TV biographies of the country’s business tycoons and how they achieved their status through “hard work” and how they return to the poor their riches through humanitarian efforts and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) projects.

This, however, is the reality: anumang sipag at tiyaga ang gawin ng malawak na sektor ng manggagawa, karamihan sa kanila ay hindi talaga aasenso. Not in a prevailing order that thrives on the cycle of inequality that it perpetuates. The success stories we are being made to witness and admire are mere exceptions rather than the norm. Surely, if it’s all up to sipag at tiyaga, then most of our employees, workers and farmers, whom we pride to be hard-working, should be experiencing economic security. Don’t you ever wonder why such is not the case? After all, who benefits the most from the hard work of workers? We are simply being made to pin our hopes and be content with the way things are done and not strive or fight for something better.

Indeed, when it is not coupled with genuine reforms and changes in the core orientation of our economies and in how our governments are run, mere sipag at tiyaga will never be enough to lift the vast majority Filipinos, and even the rest of the world’s poor, out of poverty.

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