Posts tagged with People Power

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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 That is why they routinely tell us that People Power is passe, archaic, outdated.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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February 25, 2010

To the next people power revolution!

The mainstream depiction of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution (EDSA 1) as a spontaneous outburst of the people’s outrage to the Marcos dictatorship bothers me. From how I hear it from martial law veterans and in history books, revolution has long been waging and brewing in the decade before the massive EDSA protest. EDSA 1 was simply a product, not even the culmination, of more than a decade of struggle against the dictatorship.

It also bothers me how certain personalities and families are depicted as heroes of EDSA 1, when some of them were never part in the build-up to the overthrow. It seems to me, even, that they only hijacked the opportunity when it was ripe. In fact, their only role in aiding the culmination of the people’s desire to oust Marcos were as the oppressors, being the architects and the implementors of martial rule. It’s deplorable that for all the abuses they committed the years before EDSA 1, they are remembered as its heroes simply by their last-minute act of finally riding the wave of the people’s anger. Yes, I’m talking about the military through the leadership of Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos. Worse, the real heroes who have persisted and died have consistently been sidelined and “airbrushed” out of the credit they deserve more than Enrile, Ramos, Sin or even the Aquinos.

Today some sectors are celebrating in revelry the victory of EDSA 1. But we commemorate the triumph that was at a time when our people languish in poverty and progressive reforms and resistance are suppressed by a tyrannical government. Has EDSA 1 failed? The seeming indifference of many of our people to the commemoration is telling.

I may sound ungrateful for the democratic fruits of the bloodless revolution. But to clam that without EDSA 1 we wouldn’t be enjoying the freedom we now experience is a sham. Even without the military coup, even without Cardinal Sin or Corazon Aquino, a revolution would have erupted, and I’m sure we would still be enjoying the freedoms we enjoy today, I daresay even more.

So, has EDSA 1 failed? No revolutionary triumph will ever last and succeed without the masses at the forefront and without their decisive leadership. There is no genuine triumph in a revolution that does not dismantle the old institutions that have shackled the people for centuries. Revolutions taken advantage of by oppressors posturing as heroes are bound to fail.

Social conditions today are ripe for another uprising. When the next people power revolution comes, we should have learned the glaring lessons.