Category: edsa

38 years after EDSA #marcostake2

Read Manolo Quezon‘s “Edsa in the post-restoration era” and find out, or be reminded, kung bakit nga ba nakabalik at nabigyan pa ng “second chance” sa politics and public service ang mga Marcos. It’s all about vindication, absolution, and restoration, preferably under a changed charter. But yes, the Charter Change debate has become predictably unpromising, even as that House of Reps P.I. TV ad dares blame EDSA for the nation’s woes. 

… The story of the battle over the Marcos money deposited in Switzerland runs parallel to that of the battle waged by the Marcoses to achieve political restoration and thus, political and social vindication: ideally, legal vindication or at least, an end to their prosecution, would logically follow. To my mind, this was, and remains, the sum total of the ambitions of the First Family.

What seems a cause of surprise and even friction within the President’s extended family is the moderation of this ambition: by this I mean, the political and social vindication that a Restoration by election provided; legal experts will have to figure out if an end to decades of legal cases will be another concrete manifestation of electoral absolution. An explicit revision of the national narrative is not yet included, beyond these implied achievements.

Even after trying to reduce things to a mere family feud hasn’t led to the abolition of Ninoy Aquino Day, the scrapping of the Edsa anniversary, the destruction of monuments, or the repealing of the law granting restitution to the victims of the dictatorship.

Now, the Edsa anniversary will become a time for the coming together of groups opposed to amending the Constitution, which tells us a thing or two about the democratic space that exists, the durability of factions and movements thought as entirely down and out, and the rickety, but surprisingly enduring, survivability of the political system no one seems to respect, admire, or even particularly, love, but which seems preferable to any effort by any subset of the political system, to change it. As I mentioned in this space last time, the whole Charter change debate has become predictable in its arguments and their inability to inspire, one way or another, an actual resolution of the problem everyone seems to sense, but no one has the confidence to risk trying to actually resolve: the inability of our political system to update itself or at the very least, modify.

Since it’s already much-abused, the often-cited quote of Karl Marx is useful here: “History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.” He was responding to another restoration, in his time: that of the dynasty of Napoleon, when the French Emperor’s nephew, Louis Napoleon, was elected president of France only to make himself emperor when thwarted in his ambition to extend himself in office. Napoleon III’s reign ended in defeat and exile—but after 22 years in power, and having made the country in many ways, modern, rich, and with a larger empire. I’ve argued before, that the Marcos Restoration became, in many ways, a banality, being preceded, as it was, by two others—the Macapagal Restoration in 2001 and the Aquino Restoration of 2010. A similar thing has just taken place in Indonesia, where the former son-in-law of Suharto, a general for decades under a cloud of human rights suspicion, achieved a landslide by being transformed into a cuddly old grandfather with the backing of a popular predecessor.

 

EDSA-pwera kuno?

It was certainly a shocker of sorts, that they dared invoke and blame EDSA and the 1987 Constitution for the nation’s ills. Randy may be right, that the Marcoses are not behind it, and it’s really a subversive move by certain unnamed funders to sabotage the charter change initiative, how nice, rich? and snaky, of them. And then again, what if it’s not addressed to us but to the social media masses who have long been tuned in to Marcosian propaganda canards characterizing EDSA as a communist affair? What if they believe it pala? I guess we will know soon enough. #chachacharot

The ‘Edsa-pwera’ ad
By Randy David

As yesterday’s Inquirer editorial (“When a Cha-cha ad backfires”) aptly put it, the paid ad that inundated primetime television early this week was “a poorly thought stunt that backfired if the intention was to gather public support for Charter change (Cha-cha).” That is if the intent was to mobilize broad support for constitutional change.

But, what if the real intent behind the ad was, in fact, to incite the broadest antipathy toward Charter change? Then, we may well say that the ad achieved its purpose. For indeed, the reaction to the advertisement was instant, passionate, and manifestly hostile to the whole idea of amending the 1987 Constitution at this time. Is it farfetched to imagine that this is exactly the public response that, for whatever reason, those who seek to preserve the current Constitution at any cost sought to generate?

On the contrary, what I find hard to believe is that a TV ad as sleek and as technically well-crafted as this could be so careless in its messaging. Perhaps, it wasn’t careless at all. By playing with the scornful word “Edsa-pwera,” a derivative of “etsa-puwera” (which means “excluded” in our language), the ad put the 1986 Edsa event at the front and center of its storyboard. The effect was to belittle not only the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution, a cherished moment of national redemption but also the untold injuries inflicted on the nation by the dictatorship that came before it. Why would any serious proponent of Charter change want to do that? Bongbong Marcos himself knew better than to demean Edsa in his carefully planned route to the presidency.

In so framing their message, the makers and sponsors of the advertisement effectively triggered a debate on the whys and wherefores of Edsa, rather than on the current realities that a valid push for Charter change seeks to address. It is a debate that those who were at Edsa would definitely not shirk.

Rather than promote them, as the ad claims, Edsa ended the monopolies that the Marcos dictatorship created, entrusted to his favored cronies, and fattened with behest loans. Edsa welcomed foreign investors even as it terminated the United States’ hold on the country’s largest military bases, which had served as the linchpin of American control of our political and economic life. The 1987 Constitution contains some of the most progressive provisions one can find in any country that is aspiring to modernity. It explicitly bans political dynasties, a provision that, however, could only be activated by legislative action. The Constitution itself cannot be faulted for Congress’ failure to enact a law corresponding to this constitutional declaration.

I doubt that President Marcos or his first cousin Speaker Martin Romualdez would wish to premise a productive discussion on Charter change on the supposed failures of Edsa. They are back in power; the last thing they need is to open old wounds and awaken dormant animosities. That advertisement does them a disservice; I don’t believe they’re behind it. [bold mine]

Indeed, Mr. Marcos has managed to endear himself even to Edsa veterans by differentiating and distancing himself from the policies and impulsive governance style of his autocratic predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. Why would he risk antagonizing them by blaming the post-Marcos Constitution for the country’s supposed stagnation?

Many of Edsa’s champions are hardly dogmatic in their views about the most suitable form of government for the country, whether this be presidential or parliamentary, unicameral or bicameral. I understand that the members of the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Charter were themselves divided on many questions.

What is objectionable is when politicians propose to open the Constitution to amendments primarily for their own private agenda. The basic charter of any country should be no one’s personal tool. It must be treated as a collective covenant — the product of the positive law-making power that resides ultimately in the people of a given state.

It’s important to bear this in mind because one of the oft-cited items in the Cha-cha agenda is the proposed shift to a full parliamentary system, where the occupant of the most powerful position in government is chosen by members of parliament rather than by popular vote. This system enables individuals who may not win the popular vote at the national level to bid for the office of the prime minister. Whatever the justification for the shift may be, it should never be to merely accommodate the ambitions of anyone who is not electable nationally. By the same token, opposition to a parliamentary shift must not be motivated by a mere wish to ensure that a “strong” presumptive candidate is not denied the presidency in 2028.

The parliamentary system has its advantages (e.g., it closes the gap between legislation and execution) and disadvantages (not the least of which is the relative ease with which parliament can be dissolved and, with it, the government of the day.) The choice of the best form of government is not an exact science. In any given system, what spells the biggest difference in outcomes is the political maturity of citizens who choose their nation’s leaders.

FIDEL V. RAMOS (1928-2022)

Post-EDSA what struck me most about FVR was how tight-lipped he was about the four days, refusing to tell his story to media. So unlike Juan Ponce Enrile whose story in two parts, buttressing his denial of the reformist coup plot that would have installed him in Marcos’s place, was published in the Sunday Inquirer magazine by mid-March ’86.

Could it have been because, as some pundits suggest, FVR was not really part of the aborted RAM coup — the reformists who were caught in Malacanang and presented to the public by Marcos named only Enrile’s boys of the MND and not Ramos’s of the PC-INP?  But historian Alfred McCoy (“Coup!” Veritas Special Edition, Oct 86) named Vic Batac Jr., Ramos’s chief intelligence officer, as one of the three masterminds (along with Honasan and Kapunan). And in a 1991 interview Gen. JoeAl confirmed that Ramos was in on it from the start.

JOSE ALMONTE: We planned the whole action mainly under two offices: the Ministry of National Defense and the office of Gen. Ramos, then PC Chief and AFP Vice Chief of Staff. His closest aides and the chief of his security, Sonny Razon, were members of our core group; they kept the general informed of meetings and developments [http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/day1.php]

But because Ramos didn’t rush to join Enrile in Camp Aguinaldo for the Feb 22 presscon, he gave the impression that he might have changed his mind or was having second thoughts. But I think he was just making pa-importante, choosing to flirt first with Alabang Coryistas who were urging him to resign from the Marcos government. I also think that he wanted to send the message that he was not at the beck and call of Enrile. I daresay he was confident that Enrile would not do the breakaway presscon without him.

LEWIS M. SIMON. RAM recognized that while a significant number of officers and men were prepared to line up behind Enrile, his long political and personal association with Marcos had tainted him in the minds of many more. And this was doubly true among the civilian power structure, the wealthy businessmen who’d emerged as an anti-Marcos force and the large middle class who’d tirelessly marched and demonstrated ever sine the Aquino assassination. Ramos’s image was much cleaner. [Worth Dying For (1988) page 265]

In October 86, when historian Alfred McCoy confirmed the reformist plot that Enrile had denied (“Coup!” Veritas Special Edition, Oct ’86), I figured that FVR’s silence had to do with keeping intact what relationship he had with Enrile: he didn’t care to contradict his fellow Bandido’s account, the better to keep communication lines open perhaps, or to avoid fueling  anti-Cory sentiments, what with Enrile and his RAM-boys mounting foiled coup after foiled coup to topple Cory ’86-’89.

In August 1990 when I heard that he was running for president in ’92, and that his team was looking for a biographer, I jumped at the offer, sabay tanong if he would finally tell his EDSA story, sabay send ng print-out of my draft chronology, mostly from news reports of the four days along with Enrile’s, Butz Aquino’s, and McCoy’s accounts, along with data from Nick Joaquin’s The Quartet of the Tiger Moon (1986) and Cecilio Arillo’s Breakaway (1986), among others.

My draft was a hundred or so pages pa lang then but substantial enough, apparently, for FVR to say yes to an EDSA project, never mind the biography. In our interview sessions in Camp Aguinaldo and Ayala Alabang, he would often check out my chronology, though never  to correct any of it, rather, to remind himself of details and statements he was reported to have made during the four days. Very careful, very measured in his words, he was able to tell his story without ever commenting, one way or another, on Enrile’s own statements, except to say that he concerned himself only with military affairs and left the politics to Enrile.

And yet there he was, five years later, playing politics to the hilt, revving up for a presidential campaign that he would win, against all odds.  Never mind that he changed his mind about publishing the EDSA book he commissioned, I imagine for some greater good involving Enrile and the reformist-loyalist military who were still smarting from the last, the bloodiest, the failed 1989 coup attempt.

It is interesting, in an occult way, that FVR was rushed to Makati Med a few days before he died, which may have been a day or two after, if not the day itself of, Enrile’s oathtaking as Marcos Jr.’s Chief Presidential Legal Counsel. The outpouring of tributes for FVR hailing him as the best president ever hopefully gives Marcos Jr. and Enrile pause, to take stock, and maybe resolve to do FVR even better.

***

President Fidel V. Ramos — an appreciation by Stephen CuUnjieng

FVR’s firm and soft legacies by Cielito F. Habito

Philippines’ Fidel Ramos sought Beijing ties but also showed South China Sea defiance by Raissa Robles

‘Tabako’ by Ma. Lourdes Tiquia

Once he’d been a statesman by Manuel L. Quezon III

The president who freed the skies by Milwida Guevarra

FVR: The unwritten biography by Ambeth Ocampo

FVR’s out-of-the-box style of leadership by Jarius Bondoc

Statesman by Alex Magno

WHY Cory stopped U.S. from taking Marcos to Ilocos

While it is true that Cory’s final order to the Americans was to take Marcos away from the Philippines ASAP, it was NOT her first reaction when she was informed early Tuesday evening (Feb 25) that the Marcoses were preparing to leave the Palace.

CORY: Early in the evening, I was back in Wack Wack, talking with opposition leaders, when Ambassador Bosworth called me up to say that the Marcoses had finally been persuaded to leave. Their sons-in-law had been able to convince them that it would be the best thing to do.
http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/day4.php

Close to 9 p.m., Cory received another phone call from Bosworth telling her that Marcos was ready to leave the Palace but was asking to stay for at least two days in Paoay, his home in the north.

Her first reaction was, “Poor man, let us give him two days.” This, according to former Supreme Court Justice, then MP, Cecilia Muñoz Palma, one of her close advisers who overheard, and disagreed. Like  other advisers who were with Cory then, she believed that given the chance, Marcos might regroup his forces or extend his stay indefinitely.

True enough. It is said that when the Marcos party got to Clark Air Base, Marcos got on the phone to his ministers and supporters, allegedly with plans of organizing an “Ilocano army” to fight its way to Metro Manila and “recover” the capital. http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/theflight.php  Some of these supporters reported his calls to Enrile and Ramos who began asking Cory and Bosworth what Marcos was up to.

According to Time correspondent Sandra Burton, Cory had wanted to be “magnanimous in victory,” remembering how Marcos and Imelda had released Ninoy from jail and allowed him to fly to the U.S. for heart surgery in 1980. But her advisers warned her of likely consequences, and once Bosworth assured her that Marcos was not dying, just very tired, she decided that Marcos simply had to go after a night in Clark.

SANDRA BURTON: Although General Ramos denied having been consulted on the matter, sources close to the negotiations claimed not only that he was consulted, but that he was particularly strong in urging that Marcos be given no more leash. … He explained that loyalist generals still controlled much of the north. Once Marcos returned to his province, he would be protected, and he was likely to become a magnet for hundreds of thousand of discontented supporters. “Get him out of there” is the way one of the parties to the negotiation described Ramos’s advice to Aquino. [Impossible Dream | The Marcoses, The Aquinos, and The Unfinished Revolution (1989) page 412]

FIDEL RAMOS: Both Minister Enrile and I wanted whatever was for the greater good of the greater number of Filipinos, which was to have the thing settled as fast as possible and in a bloodless, peaceful way. There are still many emotional Ilocanos who think I should have stepped in and provided Mr. Marcos the chance to go to Ilocos Norte at least to say goodbye. But at the time any deviation from the plan would have given the remaining loyalist forces the opportunity to create a rallying point, mobilize military units, and come storming back to Manila. We couldn’t let that happen while the Aquino government was still consolidating its forces. http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/day4.php  

PAMPANGA PEOPLE POWER

Clark Air Base, 9:45 P.M. — Marcos was met by US Ambassador Stephen Bosworth. He also got a “welcome” from hundreds who massed at the main gate of the base to chant “Co-ree!” while a convoy of some fifty vehicles held a noise barrage for twenty minutes along the base’s perimeter fence. http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/day4.php

JUSMAG Commander, Brigadier General Teddy Allen, who had promised to take Marcos anywhere he wished just to get him out of the Palace was in a bind.

— Deputy base commander Colonel Romeo David had already pledged his loyalty to General Ramos. “I told the head of U.S. intelligence inside Clark that I could not guarantee the safety of Marcos. If our people saw the president, they might shoot him.”

Just as threatening, said Allen, “Word went out in the province to mobilize People Power around the base, and I had visions of one million people converging on the gate by morning.”

Newly aware of the political pressures to get the ex-president out of the country soon, and worried about Marcos’s security inside the base, which was in rebel hands, General Allen sought permission from Washington to leave for Guam as soon as possible.

— At 2:30 A.M. Allen contacted Tommy Manotoc and Bong Bong Marcos and informed them of the necessity of leaving before daybreak for Guam, where he could guarantee the family’s safety until it could decide upon a final destination. 

— There was a bitter exchange between Ferdinand and American officials. He demanded to be flown to his home in the Ilocos. They had orders from President Reagan and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to fly him to America. At 4:00 A.M, Ferdinand stopped arguing.  [EDSA UNO (2013) page 318]

WHAT IF
What if the Marcoses had not so distrusted the pilots of the presidential helicopters who were prepared, since Monday morning, to fly them anywhere in the islands; or what if Marcos had motored to Paoay in an equipped ambulance. Then, again, perhaps Marcos was just too sick for a long road trip, which would render impressive the fact that he was able to walk out of the palace on his own two feet.

Still and all, if they had snubbed the American offer, if they had left under their own steam, chances are they would have made it to Paoay, and People Power would have had to regroup.

So do we owe the Americans a debt of gratitude for taking him away into exile? I have always thought the better ending would have been if the Marcoses had taken the presidential choppers, and the pilots turned out to be reformists and took the First Couple to Crame instead. With Enrile in charge, no harm would have come to them, but they would have had to face the judgement of the people in a revolutionary court, and maybe, just maybe, People Power would have levelled up to the challenge of standing strong for the greater good vs. elite and crony interests represented by Cory and Enrile.

That would have brought closure, and ushered in a new order. [EDSA UNO (2013)]