EDSA People Power: Celebrating 22 Years of Deception

I guess majority of people who reads this were not yet born or were just too young to be aware of what’s happening in politics or perhaps, since my readers are mostly from the US, they’re too busy to care about what’s happening in this third-world country called the Philippines. I should also acknowledge the presence of Spambots who might be interested in running this post in some Made for Adsense Blogs. I know they are crawling my blog now. :biggrin:

Twenty-two years ago, in the longest street of Manila called EDSA, a government was overthrown through what we Filipino’s call a people power revolution, ending two decades of American-backed military junta of then dictatorial ruler Ferdinand Marcos.

The story of what happened in EDSA, or the dramatized version of it, is now incorporated in our school curricula to supposedly remind us of how we Filipinos gave the world an example that a peaceful revolution is done. It must also be worth noting that the government declared February 25 as an official non-working holiday to commemorate the said momentous event and a special commission called the People Power Commission was established.

We had 2 other similar people power revolutions since then, the one that ousted president Estrada and installed Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, EDSA 2; and the one against Mrs. Arroyo which failed, EDSA 3. The latter is not listed in history books as a people power revolution stating several reasons why it can’t be considered as one even if the main reason is simply because it failed. This leads us to the question: “What then is a true People Revolution?” Is it a requisite that such a revolt could lead to the overthrow of an administration to be called People Power? How many people should it take for it to be called a people power revolution?

The 1986 EDSA revolution , however dramatic a story it might be, was definitely not a people power revolution. It was an elitists’s revolution backed by the, oh so, moralistic Catholic church who’s desperate enough to remain influential and relevant in Philippine society so they can control the policies of the state. These elitists paid the number of squatters from the slums of Metro Manila to participate in EDSA to add the numbers of protesters.It was EDSA 1 that institutionalize the business of paid activism and it has been one of the profitable businesses of the illiterates nowadays.

EDSA 1 was merely a show of Manila’s imperialism. People in Metro Manila always whines and whines, blaming the government why they are hungry, blaming the government for small potholes on their roads, blaming the government for almost anything and everything as if they are the only ones needing the government. People in the provinces when hungry, work their asses off, we don’t even complain about potholes because we still don’t have concrete pavements and bridges until President Arroyo prioritized the provinces over Metro Manila.

The people of Metro Manila should be reminded that Arroyo was installed by the Filipinos and not just by them. Now I know why Mindanao wants to be an independent state. Perhaps the Visayas would be next in line to ask for sovereignty.

EDSA 1 was no revolution, it was a political power grab. A power grab disguised by media and the church as people power. It was an exploitation of the youth’s vulnerable sentiments. It was a testament of how corrupt this country could be.The succeeding EDSA’s have the same intent. We are just lucky it was Gloria Arroyo was the one who succeeded the office and not another lame duck similar to Cory Aquino.

Gloria managed to turn the economy back to it’s pink of health. It’s quite hilarious how Cory and her church allies are now calling for people to march on the streets again to overthrow Mrs. Arroyo’s government now that she’s doing well in the provinces and with the economy. Perhaps they have plans to sabotage our present economic stability so they could buy their stocks at half price and sell it later on when the economy rises again. They should be the ones who need to moderate their greed.

Granting it was a real people power revolution, then Albert Camus’ idea that “once a revolution is successful, it can become more tyrannical than the original government, as the pursuit of a utopia is a pursuit that often justifies anything, even atrocities, to those who pursue it, and that, further, this process is an irresistible one once a rebellion makes the successful transition into a larger-scale (and necessarily better-organized) revolution”. If it is, then we should prepare ourselves for EDSA revolutions year after year after year.

If it were this easy to overthrow a government, then we should just ceased to call ourselves a Republic. We could even consider ourselves barbarians again.

Tags: aquino, cardinal sin, cory, EDSA, Edsa 1, edsa 2, edsa 3, feature, Features, ferdinand marcos, gloria arroyo, gloria resign, marcos, people power, Philippines, Politics, revolution