Category: people power

the radical significance of EDSA

over @ anti-pinoy.com :) blogger ilda who was either too young or not around yet in 1986 asks valid questions about EDSA One.

If an Edsa Denial group were to emerge today, their job will be easy. Aside from Ninoy Aquino’s statue on Ayala Avenue, his image on the 500-peso bill, and the Edsa “Shrine” at the corner of Ortigas Avenue, evidence of any legacy left by the 1986 “revolution” in Philippine society is becoming harder and harder to come by. What constitutes evidence that the Edsa Revolution did happen? What was the result of this event? Where is the country now in terms of economic stability and security — that “progress” that seemed so within our reach amidst the euphoria of 1986?

i’d say it’s pretty much like the 1896 revolution inspired by rizal and led by bonifacio, we (i) believe it happened because the history books (and my lola’s memoirs) say so, even if it only saw us eventually being handed over by one colonizer to another for some $20 million.   in the case of the EDSA revolution, most of my parents’ and my generation and our eldest kids’ saw it happen, that stunning non-violent change from dictatorship to democracy, even if it turned out to be just one elite group taking over from another.

just the same neither revolution was a waste of lives or effort.   i happen to be immersed in floro c. quibuyen’s A Nation Aborted — Rizal, American Hegemony, and Philippine Nationalism [Ateneo Press, 1990] for a book i’m writing on my lola’s memoirs, and this sums up pretty well what was so great about that armed revolution even if neither rizal nor bonifacio lived long enough to see it:

Summarizing the revolutionary gains of 1898, the Jesuit historian Horacio de la Costa writes: “For a few brief months, over a large area of the Islands, Filipinos were free.” The victories clearly indicate that the Revolution against the Spanish regime had been successful, and that an independent nation-state would have grown had not the Americans arrived to nip it in the bud. As Cesar Majul lamented, “The Revolution was a child that was not allowed to grow.” Herein lies the tragedy of the nation. But the tragic course of the Revolution had begun much earlier in the failure of Bonifacio and Aguinaldo in 1897 to forge a united leadership. [254]

The year 1898 marked the heyday of the Revolution, when the historic bloc that Rizal and Bonfiacio had dreamt of was finally formed.Ilustrado colleagues of Rizal who were initialy lukewarm to the movementof Bonifacio, fearing that it was ill-prepared and ill-organized, now enlisted in Aguinaldo’s army. A number of ilustrados, among them Antonio Luna, came home from Europe to join the Revolution. Apolinario Mabini, who had earlier refused to join Bonifacio’s Katipunan became, in 12 June 1898, Aguinaldo’s personal adviser (and ghost-writer in Spanish), and then, albeit briefly during the Philippine-American War, the prime minister in the revolutionary government. Throughout Luzon and the Visayas, practically all revolutionary units were organized, directed, and led by the local ilustrados, prominent members of the principalia, and even the native clergy. What Elias had hoped for in the Noli became a reality in the Revolution of 1898. (254-255)

as for EDSA, well, it was a completely different genre of revolution.   here’s an excerpt from my intro to the Chronology posted @stuartxchange.com actually meant for the english edition of Himagsikan sa EDSA–Walang Himala! that’s almost done but not quite.

Beamed worldwide from EDSA by satellite TV for all the world to witness, the dramatic People Power Revolution that non-violently ousted entrenched Philippine dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos from power into exile was the first of its kind and deserves serious study, never mind that it “failed,” as critics and cynics love to point out, to usher in social and political change. But before the failure came the success: the people stopped the tanks and Marcos fled, what a coup! no mean feat! how on earth did that happen?

Many still think the ouster was orchestrated by the Americans. As many others still insist that it was a miracle, an act of God. Not to be outshone, the military rebels claim credit for the uprising: had they not defected, there would have been no EDSA. Altogether the effect, deliberate or not, is to diminish the People’s role in that unexpected triumph, to insinuate that the People acted as mere puppets of some higher power.

Contrary to Marcos propaganda, the Americans were not responsible for the EDSA Revolution. Ronald Reagan’s trouble-shooter Philip Habib knew that something was brewing but he failed to get a handle on it. The Ramos-Enrile defection (Day 1) caught the Americans napping, People Power (Day 2) knocked them out. It was already Day 3—the battle was practically won—when the Americans intervened in earnest, and only in the matter of Marcos’s escape. Intelligence reports from the CIA may have helped the rebels during the four days but if the Americans had completely stayed out of it, EDSA would have happened anyway and it would have ended more decisively.

Neither were the military rebels responsible for EDSA. Their defection only served as catalyst for the display of People Power. Remove the reformists and some other agitators would have come along. At the time, Cory’s boycott campaign versus Marcos-crony businesses was starting to peak and the business community was beginning to hurt. Had the reformist military not defected, Big Business would have had to make a move to force Marcos to step down for the sake of the economy. The reformists would have fallen in line eventually, and People Power would have stolen the show just as stunningly, just in time to render moot Marcos’s inauguration. If anything, the military defectors owed their lives and status, post-EDSA, to the People who not only saved their lives but also prevailed upon Cory to avail of their armed services.

Neither was EDSA a miracle, beyond human understanding. There is a rational cause-and-effect explanation, unfortunately kept hidden from the public, for everything that happened during those four days, from the Enrile-Ramos defection to the Marcos-Ver escape. Walang himala! No sick were healed, no water turned into wine, the sun did not dance, and the Marian apparition is all in the Cardinal’s mind. EDSA was about ordinary people in great numbers who dared to confront, unarmed, the military might of the dictator and discovered in the process their mind-boggling powers when united by a common goal. Walang himala. The task of removing the dictator was well within the people’s natural human powers.

In fact, EDSA was wrought by People Power, which was made flesh by the martial law regime when it jailed, and then made a martyr of, opposition leader Beningno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. EDSA was the climactic and final chapter of the fierce rivalry between Marcos and Ninoy which saw the widow Cory rising triumphant on a glorious wave of People Power. Also, EDSA is a sublime, if controversial, chapter in the Filipino people’s continuing struggle for freedom which inspired the world but proved an empty victory at home. As in the aftermath of the 1896 Revolution, the masses in 1986 went home empty-handed, the spoils pre-empted by old peninsulares and new ilustrados. Nonetheless it was sublime, and the Four Days (and preceding events, to some extent) bear recalling and scrutinizing, if only for lessons in non-violent warfare and the dynamics of People Power.

like 1898, 1986 saw the rare “historic bloc” formed, this time unarmed, masses of poor, middle class, and rich coming together with one goal in mind: the ouster of marcos.   the action climaxed in EDSA on day 2, a cool sunday afternoon, when a sea of people stood in the path of tanks that had orders from marcos to ram through! and general tadiar and his men, instead, bowed to the will of the people.   that was the end of marcos.   the message of EDSA is simple: to effect CHANGE without bloodshed, the filipino majority only need to unite and rally behind a common cause.

the catch is, we have to unite, rally, behind a common cause.   to unite thus, we have to be adequately informed on issues.   in ’86 it was possible to unite against marcos after more than 13 years of martial rule and disappearances and salvagings and crony capitalism, and after more than two years since ninoy’s assassination, and only because there emerged the brave mosquito press that defied censorship rules and spread the word about the conjugal dictatorship, the hidden wealth, the profligate shopping, the fake war medals, the human rights violations, the behest loans, the failing economy, his kidney problem, at kung ano ano pa, which was critical in building up and unifying and mobilizing the anti-marcos movement behind ninoy’s widow when the dictator finally was pressed into calling snap elections.

in 2001 edsa dos succeeded in replacing erap with gma largely because of the free media’s exposes of the presidential mansions and mistresses and then eventually because of the nationally televised impeachment trial over some two months, replayed over and over at night and on weekends, until the second envelope issue triggered the walkout that brought the students massing in edsa, not knowing that behind the scenes the arroyos were plotting with the generals.   and because that’s all we rallied behind — the ouster of erap — that’s all we got.

since then every call for people power has failed.   the so-called edsa tres because the crowds, not knowing better, turned violent, and so the military didn’t hesitate to disperse them.    the post-garci oust-gloria rallies because, well, the people are a little more sophisticated: kung wala naman tayong ipapalit na matino, what’s the point.   indeed.

so it’s not as manolo quezon alias the explainer suggests, that EDSA is no longer significant, no longer relevant to these times.    EDSA will never lose its significance, not in a humane world where non-violence should rule.   invoking EDSA is not helping noynoy’s candidacy only because EDSA is all about CHANGE and a noynoy presidency, so far, promises only small change.

the media are the key to CHANGE.   an informed media would make all the difference.   popular print and broadcast journalists who will find the time to read and to think critically and write and talk about EDSA, and about the economic, environmental, health, and education issues that hound us, so that the public can have a better sense of the options open to us, would make all the difference.

enough of talkshow hosts who don’t read the right books *lol* who expect to be spoonfed by pundits who don’t read the right books either *lol* worse , who can’t be bothered to read yet dare talk about it.   google it man lang, guys!

enough of the wowowee idiocracy!

vote with y/our remote!

de quiros, aquino, edsa

conrado de quiros is sounding like a broken record these days, insisting that “edsa” &  “people power” and “good vs. evil” are the themes to work on if we want to see noynoy aquino again racing ahead of the pack like after his mom died.

and so a guy asked him daw:

“DON’T you think that transforming the choice into a moral one is a little too high for the masa to grasp? Don’t you think the better tack would be to talk about gut issues (malapit sa bituka)?”

the noted columnist’s reply is so last decade:

Not at all.

To begin with, you would not be transforming anything. You would not be raising or reducing or reshaping anything. That was exactly how the masa saw the choice from the very start, when Cory died and Noynoy Aquino announced his intention to run: the choice was a moral one. It was not a gratuitous choice between presidential candidates, between Noynoy and Villar (Villar never even figured in the equation), between what the candidates had to offer. It was a desperate choice between the GMA curse and the Cory legacy, between Noynoy (or what he represented) and Gloria (or what she is), between life and death.

It was a choice between Good and Evil.

The fact that Noynoy got more than 60 percent showed this wasn’t merely a middle-class or elite sentiment…

yes, but that was then, we were in grief, we were emotional and romantic, we wanted more of cory and ninoy (not of gma) and noynoy seemed like the next best thing.   but this is now, we have been through a lot since cory died — killer floods, the ampatuan massacre, the murder of the rh bill, and now the illegal arrest and torture of 43 ngo health workers — and some of us are looking for answers to many questions beyond who-what is good who-what is evil, according to whom?   dams are good in times of reasonable rain, but evil in times of excessive rain.   due process is good, but why is it that the law is more protective of the rights of indicted evil-doers?   and where is due process for the health workers accused of being bomb-makers?   is the military good or evil?    is contraception good or evil?   it’s all too muddled to work as a winnowing concept and yet de quiros thinks the world of this good vs. evil theme.

For a long, long time, GMA was seen as the worst leader this country has ever had after Marcos, or for some even before Marcos. Yet all that it elicited from the public was cynicism and text jokes. It was only after Cory died and Noynoy arose in her wake that the cynicism turned into a revulsion for an intolerable situation and the text jokes turned into an epic desire to change things.

For the Aquino camp, that means it’s not just enough to harp on the hell that the GMA curse is, or the heaven that the Cory legacy can be, it needs to harp on the hell that the GMA curse is and the heaven that the Cory legacy can be, at the same time. For the Aquino camp, that means that it’s not just enough to harp on Villar as the embodiment, continuation or extension of GMA (literally or in a kindred way) or Noynoy as the inheritor, keeper, and perpetuator of the Cory legacy, it needs to harp on the one as the disease and on the other as the cure.

but what is this heavenly change that cory’s legacy will bring about through noynoy?   mababaw ang kaligayahan ni de quiros.

Who cares about Noynoy’s plans for education? Simply removing the monsters whose very existence teaches the young that lying, cheating and stealing are rewarded and whistle-blowing, telling the truth, and being courageous are punished is an entire curriculum unto itself. Who cares about Noynoy’s plans for economic development? Simply stopping a reign of corruption stops poverty completely literally in that there is no mahirap where there is no korap, and completely spiritually in that nothing impoverishes a country more than an utter lack of moralidad. Who cares about Noynoy’s plans for national security? You arrest the usurpers who made the country home to desperation and insecurity, and line them up against the wall, or its legal equivalent since we don’t have the death penalty anymore, though we can always make an exception, and we will have more security than can be guaranteed by the armed forces or the insurance companies.

but we should care about a presidential candidate’s plans for education; the curriculum problem goes beyond / goes deeper, it’s not just ethical and moral but academic and pedagogic and even a problem of language.   and we should care about noynoy’s plans for economic development because de quiros exaggerates, stopping corruption will not stop poverty “completely literally”: it would only mean a little more money for health education and dole-outs for some but not nearly enough to make a sustainable difference in the lives of the many many poor, not while the oligarchy reigns and the debt policy rules.    and we should care about noynoy’s plans for national security because current policies discriminate against pinoys (think vfa) and civil society (pro-poor ngos) and do nothing to secure our environment, and our very lives, from deadly trash and irresponsible land use and destructive mining and rapid reckless deforestation.

in another column, de quiros waxes nostalgic about edsa and people power and the cory magic.

The Cory magic hasn’t lost its magic, it has simply not been used. Or the Cory magic hasn’t lost its magic, it has simply been lost on the people who held it in their hands but never knew what they had. The Cory magic is Edsa. The Cory magic is People Power. The Cory magic is the glimmer of hope piercing through the dark of despair.

I said last year that the Noynoy camp had a tremendous advantage in that the opening of the year presented two Edsas, January being Edsa II and February being Edsa I. Both resonated with good triumphing over evil, a concept GMA has been at pains to make people forget, which is why she has tried to hide the very thing—and people, who were Cory and Jaime Cardinal Sin—that brought her to power. Both stood to unleash the Cory magic in all its glory.

January came and went, and not a single statement on Edsa, or about Edsa, issued from the lips of the Aquino camp. We’re on the second week of February, and not a single statement on Edsa, or about Edsa, has issued from the lips of the Aquino camp. We’re on the fifth month after Noynoy declared his intention to run, and not much, if not not a single statement, has issued from the lips of the Aquino camp about their cries of anguish and anger from the pit of the land, about the glimmer of hope piercing through the dark of despair, about the people and their power.

The Cory magic is not something that works by itself, it works only by being used. The Cory magic is Edsa, the Cory magic is People Power, the Cory magic is people drawing the line, demanding change, commanding change, shouting at the top of their lungs, “tama na, sobra na, palitan na.” You do not invoke these things, you do not conjure these things, you do not say the magic words that unleash these things—there is no Cory magic.

ah, yes, EDSA.   de quiros makes it seem like we are back in 1986 and the choice is simple, black and white, good vs. evil, cory vs. marcos.    indeed “tama na, sobra na, palitan na” were magic words back then, but it was clear kung sino ang dapat palitan at sino ang dapat ipalit, the opposition being united behind one cory (doy did a mar upon the clamor of the people).   eh hindi naman ganyan ang sitwasyon ngayon.   ang daming choice.   maliban kay mar, walang kandidatong kusang nagbibigaydaan kay noynoy, each one thinks himself/herself as the good one vs. the evil one.   and maybe all of them are right, all in their own small ways.

if the object was were to beat gma’s annointed and everything evil she stands for in the may elections, and if the strategy was were to go by, be guided by, the EDSA tradition, then villar erap gordon gibo jamby perlas bro.eddie and jc, should have, one and all, when cory died, humbly nobly happily rallied behind noynoy as the one opposition candidate.   of course it didn’t happen because there was no clamor to that effect.   the real clamor is for CHANGE but noynoy is only promising small change — to stop corruption and streamline the system, the very system that needs changing.

truth to tell, it’s jamby madrigal and nicanor perlas who are running on platforms of CHANGE, and noynoy and the rest should be giving way to them, i.e., if we are to go by EDSA.   but the people aren’t ready, pinagiisipan pa nila, pinagtatalunan pa, kung sino ano ba talaga ang paniniwalaan, ano nga ba yung tama na, alin ba ang sobra na, paano ba papalitan, atano ang ipapalit.   clearly people power continues on “hold” while seeking to level-up beyond good vs. evil.

environment & revolution

if junie kalaw were alive he’d be saying i-told-you-so, just like odette alcantara.   junie and odette were our leading environmentalists, pioneers, who didn’t live to see the great floods wrought by ondoy & pepeng [and some dam(ned) officials] but who warned us often enough since the 1980s that this would happen one day unless we changed, radically transformed, our politics and lifestyles.

i never got to meet odette but junie i knew very well.   youngest son of maximo m. kalaw, the author, educator, and fierce advocate of philippine independence from the united states in the early 1900s.   met junie in ’84 through jorge arago and it was as researcher and managing editor of his journal Alternative Futures that i learned all about the sad state of our environment, thanks to bad government policies.

in ’97 anvil came out with junie’s book Exploring Soul & Society, a compilation of papers on sustainable development published and presented in different publications and fora here and abroad from1986 to 1995.   the first part, Environment & Revolution, opens with a call to empower ourselves a la EDSA.

finally the time has come.   john nery is correct,  the political dynamic has changed, the environment is an agenda waiting for a president.

A LETTER TO FUTURE FILIPINOS

by Maximo ‘Junie’ Kalaw

Our story began more than 14 billion years ago with a burst of cosmic fire and the evolution of our solar system. Ten billion years later, life forms were spawned on our planet, followed by the emergence of human consciousness, which formed and informed different cultures.

Early myths speak of a Being who created us, our land, forests, rivers, mountains, oceans, and all living creatures. This Being — known as Apo to the Lumads of Mindanao, Kabunian to the Kalingas of the Cordilleras, and Bathala to the Negritos of Central Luzon — imbued all creation with a sacred potential.

Beginning in the 16th century, however, waves of colonialism washed over our island archipelago. The Spaniards, then the Americans, then the Japanese brought with a different source of power and revelation about the nature of life. The Divine was driven up to the heavens and life hereafter. Nature was viewed as a mere resource for making mechanistic and utopian dreams come true, legimitizing conquest, exploitation, and two world wars.

Five centuries later we find ourselves at a critical moment in our history. Our survival as a people is imperiled by the destruction of our tropical rain forest, the erosion of our topsoil, and the killing of our coral reefs. We are shutting down, ierreversibly and at an alarming rate, the very systerms that support life.

Yet our population continues to increase, even as more than half of us live on incomes inadequate to feed an average-sice family. Because every one of us owes foreign creditors over Php 3,000, we sell what remains of our precious natural resources at undervalued prices and allocate more than 43 % of our foreign exchange to servicing foreign loans. If present conditions continue, the sustainability of our society is doubtful.

We cling, however, to the belief that grave crisis is a correspondingly great opportunity for change. This crisis is pushing us to take a different view of ourselves, our Inang Bayan, our planetary home, and the process we call development.

It is an opportunity to recover our cultural identity and affirm the values of our indigenous peoples; to create with them an alternate way of caring for the life that flows through all beings; to translate this vision into new forms of villages, farms and factories, transportation and communication; and to live a sustainable spirituality which translates the teachings of great spiritual traditions into norms and ethics that can guide the realities of large wholes and systems.

It is an opportunity to empower ourselves anew, as we did at the EDSA revolution, by participating in decisions that affect our future. We need to create a completely different chapter in our story as a people and as a species where the predominant ethics of our actions will be based on the authority of Nature and our interconnectedness with her, thus empowering us to transform state, party, and church bureaucracy.

It means the exercise of a different kind of politicalwill, that is, a new politics of facilitating the flow of life/resources rather than accumulating it as political bounty. It means the exercise of true service in the noble enterprise of creating a Filipino community within the sacred community of life on earth.

On our ability to transform ourselves rests your future.

Time Magazine, December 1990

people power, rain or shine

it was a memorable day that we all got to share, thanks to the marvel of television.   the cathedral rites were beautiful, fr. arevalo’s eulogy sublime, and the military honors stately and dignified.   the family continued to amaze and warm the heart,sharing their mom, sharing their grief, never mind that it meant being exposed to the cruel glare of lights and cameras and nosy, sometimes uncouth, media.   thank you, ballsy, pinky, noynoy, viel, and kris!

but the best was yet to come.   and it happened out in the streets, the people’s turf, where yellow crowds gathered in great numbers, lining the streets or marching with the casket, flashing the Laban sign and chanting “Co-ry! Co-ry! Co-ry!”   it reminded me so much of the snap election campaign, when nakarating kami ng mga magulang ko hanggang lucena, quezon para lang maki-rally kay cory.

there was a brief moment when i asked myself, where were all these people, where were we, when cory was leading street protests asking gloria to resign post-garci and later in support of jun lozada?   why were we not there for cory then?   but now i see that it doesn’t really matter anymore.   what matters is that we have rediscovered cory & ninoy and what they stood for.   and i have no doubt that when the time is right, People Power will rise again, rain or shine.