Category: revolution

Inchoate displays of anger

AMELIA HC YLAGAN

“Inchoate” means imperfectly formed or formulated: formless, incoherent, the Merriam-Webster dictionary says, to which the Cambridge dictionary adds, “not completely developed or clear.” When Sanjoy Chakravorty, professor of global studies at Temple University, Pennsylvania, called the fever of street protests around the world in 2019 “inchoate displays of anger,” “inchoate” can only mean futile and desperate.

The Guardian, in its Oct. 25 issue, cites experts in academe on political science, speaking on the long-playing “protests in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Chile, Catalonia and Iraq as well as in Russia, Serbia, Ukraine and Albania… the UK (against Brexit), France (yellow vest movement), and Spain, in the restive region of Catalonia. The Middle East has convulsed with so much dissent that some are calling it a second wave of the Arab Spring. In South America, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela have experienced popular unrest.” The article asks, “Protests rage around the world — but what comes next?”

Read on…

“facebook is the new EDSA” ?!? LOL

this is to disabuse the duterte diehard who, at the senate’s jan 30 fake news hearing, dared suggest, propound, push the notion that facebook is the new EDSA.  it is NOT.  and i’m glad, on the one hand, that no senator dignified the statement by making patol —  committee chair poe was more interested in how many followers the guy had, even promising that from 30,000 it would be more than double that after the hearing.

on the other hand, it makes me wonder if it was her underhanded way of making patol sort of?  as in, you know, it’s all about the numbers?  as in 60 million fb users! say ng diehard, which is more believable, i must say, than ressa’s 97% of pinoys (!) because that’s like saying even the poorest of the poor? are online a lot?  with what, the 4Ps pantawid cash?  but i digress.

even if it were true that practically all pinoys (except the very young and the very old?) are active online, such great numbers would far from an edsa make.  EDSA 86 was about throngs of unarmed people gathering in the streets, united behind, and ready to die for, a common cause: ousting marcos.  on facebook there is no getting behind a common cause.  duterte diehards are forever bickering among themselves while the various opposition factions can’t get their act together on anything under the sun.

and if the duterte diehard was thinking of the arab spring revolts in tunisia and egypt in early 2010 that we thought were waged and won on and through facebook and twitter, think again.  facebook was more like the GPS lang.  read So, Was Facebook Responsible for the Arab Spring After All? 

… Facebook is what guided the protests, but the true vehicle for change was the protests themselves.

… In the end, no matter the importance of the online tools, “history happened on the streets” … But how those streets became flooded by so many, well, it wasn’t random, and social media’s role boils down to two simple but central accomplishments: First, Facebook and elsewhere online is where people saw and shared horrifying videos and photographs of state brutality that inspired them to rebel. Second, these sites are where people found out the basic logistics of the protests — where to go and when to show up.

in EDSA 86 everyone was on the same page — pro-marcos peeps knew enough to stay away because they would be booed out, like nora aunor was, just because she had been identified with the marcoses at one time or another; in fairness, bumalik siya anyway and eventually got through to enrile in camp aguinaldo and was welcomed with open arms.

but wait, meron din nga palang fake news sa EDSA!  on day 3, monday 24 feb, soon after the defection of sotelo’s 15th strike wing, when fvr and enrile had opened the gates of crame to let the people in, there came the BIG NEWS from june keithley via radyo bandido that the marcoses had left the palace.  nakoryente si ketly, but so were fvr and cory who also received, and believed, the news.

it was a psy-war kind of thing, say ni fvr after.  the hope probably was that the fake news would send the crowds home — tapos na ang boksing — leaving only enrile and fvr and RAM in crame so that the marines (positioned in camp aguinaldo’s golf course) could proceed to bomb them without hurting civilians.

fortuitously, the crowds grew larger in number instead, and there was dancing in the streets until an hour or so later when it was confirmed that the marcoses were still holed up in the palace, and it was back to the barricades, no prob.  lalo pa ngang dumami ang tao sa EDSA.  it was as if the people smelled victory and were bent on making the fake news true.  and they did, some 30 hours later.

in that sense, ok din ang fake news, like when it gives you something great to aspire for?

revolutionary government, by hook or by crook?

MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday advised his critics to unite and form one group … his latest call to dissenters as allies and supporters accused them anew of destabilization efforts.

“I would be happy, really, if they will start to merge into one command. Itong mga Komunista at itong Liberal (Party), at itong mga iba na gustong paalisin ako, mag-isa isa na lang kayo,” he said in a speech in Malacañang.

… “Isang grupo. I think you share the same ideological whatever. Para hindi na masyadong magkalat ang ano… we can focus on all of you,” Duterte said.

the next day, this.

“Pag ang destabilization ninyo patagilid na and medyo magulo na (If your destabilization is worsening and it is becoming chaotic), I will not hesitate to declare a revolutionary government until the end of my term, and I will arrest all of you and we can go to a full scale war against the Reds,” [Duterte] said in an interview with Erwin Tulfo aired over PTV Friday night.

“Mag-declare ako ng revolutionary government, period. And I will declare — I will clear the streets and I will declare all government positions vacant.
Mas matuloy, wala na akong problema kasi habulin ko na ngayon ‘yung mga corrupt para matanggal ko. Sige, mag-demonstrate kayo, bring it to a point na talagang tatagilid ‘yung gobyerno.”

am i so out of the loop that i haven’t heard of, or feel, moves to destablize the duterte government in aid of ousting him?  meron ba talagang gumagana na destabilization plots ang mga dilawan at / o ang mga pula?

ang pakiramdam ko nga, parang ang presidente mismo at ang kanyang sobrang matitinik na social media forces ang nangde-destabilize, nanggagalit, nanguudyok, nananadya, practically, literally, goading us into rising up in anger at all the lying and killing.

parang they would like nothing better than to provoke us into what he tagged “EDSA terrorism” (correct me if i heard wrong) which would give him reason, excuse, pretext to declare a revolutionary government.  parang si marcos noong 1972 — kinailangan munang ma-ambush si enrile before marcos dared sign proclamation 1081.

but the similarity ends there.  for what he wants to do 60 days of martial law would not suffice, so duterte’s being creative.  if you’re on facebook, read jose alejandrino’s primer on rev powers that is making the rounds.

once duterte finds an excuse to abrogate the constitution, he will next do a cory instead, declare a revolutionary government, rule by executive decree, change the constitution to provide for federalism atbp., hold a plebiscite in may 2018, the people vote yes, and the shift to federalism happens, i can’t imagine how, though i can imagine da who.

i also imagine that the duterte constitution has already been crafted, naghihintay na lang ng tamang panahon.  so bakit ba sobrang nagmamadali?  i think it has to do with mindanao.  i think nangako siya sa MI at sa MN and he’s being held to that promise or else there will be more war.  kung ma-approve nga ang bagong constitution in may 2018, then by may 2019 we would be voting in “new” officials to regional governments and to some kind of parliament.  and that would be the end of the revo government daw.

rep edcel lagman insists that there are no destabilization plots or serious threats from the left and political opposition. 

He also said that establishing a revolutionary government has no constitutional basis.

“A revolutionary government is the result of a successful people’s uprising or revolt overthrowing an incumbent President and his subalterns like the EDSA People Power revolution,” he said.

He added: “It is not a product of a self-serving declaration of a sitting President ostensibly to retain and prolong the exercise of powers and “crush” perceived enemies of the state.”

but there are ways and ways of spinning the cory “precedent” to make it seem like this is a similar moment for duterte given how radical his federalism agenda, and how great, allegedly, it would be for country.  at matagal na niya itong sinasabi.  read chit pedrosa’s Federalism is the answer.

In his speech after being proclaimed the standard-bearer of PDP-Laban political party, Duterte said he has no ambition to run for president, but decided to do so when his political party’s leaders urged him to run and push for federalism.

“Kinausap ako to carry the torch of federalism,” Duterte said. “I will build a nationwide consensus for federalism.”

a nationwide consensus would be good.  i’m against federalism but i’m open to being overruled by the majority — an informed majority, of course.  kung ibig talaga ng presidente na ituloy ang may 2018 plebiscite, may panahon pang pag-usapan ito nang masinsinan.  sana may information campaign on what that new constitution would be like, and what federalism coupled with economic liberalization would mean for the impoverished masses and the oppressed middle class, in aid of public discussions in the run-up to a plebiscite.  ‘wag naman tayo masyadong biglain.

meanwhile the political oppositions can only warn against a dictatorship, not about what the president thinks he needs dictatorial powers for.  in denial ba sila about the president’s agenda?  o baka naman okay sa kanila ang charter change at federalism?  it’s time to have this conversation, folks.

 

Philippines’ City of Illusions: Time for an Economic ‘EDSA Revolution’

Richard Javad Heydarian

Earlier this year, I was astonished by a commercial, which features no less than Leonardo Di Caprio, Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, who playfully endorse a luxurious and lavish new casino and integrated resort in the Philippines, City of Dreams Manila. By all means, both the glossy commercial as well as the casino itself is impressive, if not obscenely ostentatious. One could witness the City of Dreams‘ captivating exterior after passing by a nearby competitor, the Solaire Resort and Casino, which stands as a worthy rival to the new kid in town.

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