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The relevance of the EDSA People Power Revolution, 31 years later

The 1986 People Power revolution was not merely a people’s collective exertion against a tyrannical regime. More importantly, it was a people’s war to recover their dignity and freedom ensuring that as life comes from God, only God can take away.

These remarks were delivered at a forum on the EDSA People Power Revolution at the School of Economics, University of the Philippines, Diliman, on February 24, 2017.

With your permission, I will begin from the beginning.

I was trained as a professional soldier at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) beginning in 1952, or 75 years ago.

I left the portals of the PMA with the knowledge that as a professional soldier in a democratic polity “mine was not to reason why, but only to do and die.”

My original sin was that I violated this dictum soon after I was deployed in the Sierra Madre mountains to fight the Huks in 1956.

I questioned why our political leaders were ordering us to hunt and kill the very people who paid for our education.

I accepted the rational that the Huks have risen to bring down the government by force, and it had no choice but to exercise its constitutional and legal duty to call on the armed forces and the police to suppress their rebellion.

But I had another question: Why were they rebelling against the government?

Since 1956, when I first asked this basic question, I have dedicated myself to find an answer/solution to this compelling issue but up to this day, or 71 years later, I am still groping for a satisfactory answer.

Duterte’s reforms

That is why I was relieved to note that of all the presidents after former president Ramos, only President Duterte is trying to continue the basic reforms initiated by the Ramos government for the purpose of establishing a national enabling environment.

The thesis of the Ramos government was that only within an enabling environment can our people develop the capability to solve the nation’s perennial problems of inequality, poverty, corruption, injustice, criminality, drugs, and other problems associated with underdevelopment.

The elements of the radical national reform which aims to establish an enabling environment being continued by President Duterte are:

The program to end the nation’s internal war by appointing known personalities from the Left to government cabinet positions, and pursuing peace negotiation with the leaders of the longest communist insurgency in the world. Similarly, President Duterte is personally talking with the separatist movements – the MNLF and MILF – using his previous investments of goodwill with them.

Actions to reform the nation’s broken politics where national policies are formulated by special interest groups and implemented to serve their interest rather than the common good. His method is to change the form of government from unitary to federal and perhaps from presidential to parliamentary.

Indications the Duterte government will begin to level the playing field in both the nation’s land and non-land sectors.

Clamor vs EJKs

If the above elements are put in place, we will be able to effectively enforce our Constitution and our laws, and our national development plans can succeed. But there are indications that these basic enabling reforms may be derailed in their implementation in the midst of national and international clamor against extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the war against drugs.

In any event, regardless of whatever other purposes the government may have in the brutal war against drugs, EJKs have limits especially when applied with impunity. EJKs create conditions where vengeance defines justice. The same conditions create a moral command – a compelling moral imperative according to the late Jaime Cardinal Sin – where disobedience binds all (citizens, soldiers, police) together unconditionally, irrevocably, universally.

SYMBOLS. February 25, 2017 marks 31 years since the EDSA People Power Revolution. Photo from Gov.PH

It may be recalled that the 1986 People Power revolution was not merely a people’s collective exertion against a tyrannical regime. More importantly, it was a people’s war to recover their dignity and freedom ensuring that as life comes from God, only God can take away.

If the 1986 People Power revolution is being argued as the nation’s contribution to world culture and civilization, it is primarily because it brought down an entrenched predatory and cruel regime without assaulting the life and dignity of anyone, friend or foe alike. It became a world model for political change without bloodshed.

To me, this is the relevance of the 1986 People Power Revolution today, 31 years later. – Rappler.com Retired general Jose T. Almonte served as national security adviser to President Fidel V. Ramos.

https://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/162530-relevance-edsa-people-power-revolution-today

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Significance and Consequences of the 'People Power' Uprising in the Philippines

By: Prof. Jose Maria Siso

The most definitive end of the Marcos fascist dictatorship came Feb. 25, 1986, when the despot Marcos and his family had to be flown out of the presidential palace by U.S. helicopter. There was no other way for them to escape the wrath of the people because tens of thousands of progressive workers and students belonging to Kilusang Mayo Uno and League of Filipino Students respectively had already massed up around the palace.

Since Feb. 22, 1986, hundreds of thousands of people, peaking at 2 million, had occupied the EDSA highway in order to support the breakaway of a military group from the dictatorship and in order to effect the complete isolation and downfall of the autocratic regime. The progressive multisectoral alliance BAYAN served as the hard core of the mass uprising.

Mass uprisings organized and spearheaded mainly by BAYAN also burst out in provincial capitals, cities, and towns outside of Metro Manila. The most dramatic among these was the one in Angeles City, which blocked the tanks of General Palafox from Camp Aquino in Tarlac. The mass uprisings in the provinces served to neutralize and paralyze the civilian and military followers of Marcos.

The doom of the Marcos fascist regime began in 1979 when international credit for the Philippines as well as for the third world countries started to tighten. As a result, the state corporations and the crony corporations – all big comprador enterprises – started to collapse in 1981. More and more groups of big compradors and landlords started to openly criticize Marcos and his cronies who were the only ones bailing themselves out of the crisis with state financial resources.

The regime had difficulties providing funds for the over-­expanded military establishment. The fascist dictatorship had failed to suppress the armed revolutionary movement. Instead, it succeeded in causing its accelerated growth in strength. The legal democratic movement had by then started to make conspicuous advances in the form of new militant mass organizations, increasing indoor and outdoor rallies and workers' strikes.

In 1983 Benigno Aquino, who had been in exile in the United States since his 1980 release from prison, thought it was time for him to return home and seize the political initiative from Marcos. He decided to fly to the Philippines on Aug. 21, 1983. The Marcos clique got into a political panic and decided to have Aquino assassinated.

The Aquino assassination proved to be the biggest political mistake of the regime until then. The outrage over it unlid the long pent-up hatred of the broad masses of the people and resulted in unprecedentedly huge mass actions in urban areas and further intensification of the armed struggle from 1983 up to the fall of Marcos. At the core of the revolutionary mass movement was the Communist Party of the Philippines.

It was the revolutionary mass movement that had consistently and vigorously isolated and weakened the Marcos dictatorship over a long period of time. And it was fear of this revolutionary mass movement already making large strides that drove the United States and the majority of the big compradors and landlords, including the Catholic Church, to decide on preparing the way for Marcos' replacement in anticipation of the whitewash of the Aquino assassination.

Marcos' successors have proven to be fundamentally no different from Marcos as oligarchs of the comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class.

If we single out the most decisive factor that brought about the fall of Marcos, we must point to the revolutionary mass movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines. This fact is, however, obfuscated by the rise of Corazon Aquino and her pro-imperialist and reactionary cohorts to government positions. The balance of forces was such that the revolutionary movement could cause the downfall of Marcos but could not as yet seize political power or get a major share of power in a government headed by Aquino.

The EDSA uprising, which went far beyond the scale of the Edsa highway, was a sovereign act of the Filipino people in order to overthrow the Marcos fascist dictatorship, which had been instigated and supported by the United States. For a while, the Filipino people were euphoric about having liberated themselves from tyranny. They expected national independence and democracy to flourish. They hoped that violations of human rights would cease as political prisoners were released and a ceasefire agreement was forged between the new government of Aquino and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

But from month to month in 1986 and 1987, the Aquino government exposed itself as the chief agent of U.S. imperialism and the anti-Marcos section of the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords to which Aquino herself belonged. She upheld as valid the anti-national decrees of Marcos favoring U.S. economic and security interests. She agreed to pay the odious foreign debts incurred by Marcos. She retained and applied the anti-labor decrees of Marcos and she gave the go signal to her military minions to massacre the peasants in front of the presidential palace. Thereafter, she unleashed the so-called low-intensity conflict strategy against the people and the revolutionary forces.

The successors of Marcos, from Corazon Aquino to her son Benigno Aquino III who is the current president of the Philippines, have proven to be fundamentally no different from Marcos as oligarchs of the comprador big bourgeoisie and the landlord class. Their only difference is that Marcos blatantly proclaimed martial law to oppress the people, whereas his successors employ pseudo-democratic embellishments on the chains of the people. The EDSA uprising succeeded in overthrowing an autocrat but not the entire ruling system of big compradors and landlords beholden to U.S. imperialism.

As a consequence to this day, the Filipino people and the revolutionary forces continue to wage the people's democratic revolution through a protracted people's war. They celebrate the 30th anniversary of the EDSA uprising to call for the intensification of the revolutionary struggle, while the oligarchs headed by the ruling Aquino family celebrate the continuance of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system in the Philippines.

Prof. Jose Maria Sison is Chairperson of the International League of Peoples' Struggle

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/Significance-of-the-People-Power-Uprising-in-the-Philippines-20160224-0041.html

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EDSA People Power Revolution

The Philippines was praised worldwide in 1986, when the so-called bloodless revolution erupted, called EDSA People Power’s Revolution. February 25, 1986 marked a significant national event that has been engraved in the hearts and minds of every Filipino. This part of Philippine history gives us a strong sense of pride especially that other nations had attempted to emulate what we have shown the world of the true power of democracy. The true empowerment of democracy was exhibited in EDSA by its successful efforts to oust a tyrant by a demonstration without tolerance for violence and bloodshed. Prayers and rosaries strengthened by faith were the only weapons that the Filipinos used to recover their freedom from President Ferdinand Marcos’s iron hands. The Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) stretches 54 kilometers, where the peaceful demonstration was held on that fateful day. It was a day that gathered all Filipinos in unity with courage and faith to prevail democracy in the country. It was the power of the people, who assembled in EDSA, that restored the democratic Philippines, ending the oppressive Marcos regime. Hence, it came to be known as the EDSA People Power’s Revolution.

The revolution was a result of the long oppressed freedom and the life threatening abuses executed by the Marcos government to cite several events like human rights violation since the tyrannical Martial Law Proclamation in 1972. In the years that followed Martial Law started the suppressive and abusive years–incidents of assassination were rampant, particularly those who opposed the government, individuals and companies alike were subdued. The Filipinos reached the height of their patience when former Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Sr. was shot and killed at the airport in August 21, 1983, upon his return to the Philippines from exile in the United States. Aquino’s death marked the day that Filipinos learned to fight. His grieving wife, Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino showed the Filipinos and the world the strength and courage to claim back the democracy that Ferdinand Marcos arrested for his personal caprice. Considering the depressing economy of the country, Ninoy’s death further intensified the contained resentment of the Filipinos. In the efforts to win back his popularity among the people, Marcos held a snap presidential election in February 7, 1986, where he was confronted with a strong and potent opposition, Corazon Aquino. It was the most corrupt and deceitful election held in the Philippine history. There was an evident trace of electoral fraud as the tally of votes were declared with discrepancy between the official count by the COMELEC (Commission on Elections) and the count of NAMFREL (National Movement for Free Elections). Such blatant corruption in that election was the final straw of tolerance by the Filipinos of the Marcos regime. Thedemonstration started to break in the cry for democracy and the demand to oust Marcos from his seat at Malacañang Palace. The revolt commenced when Marcos' Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the Armed Forces Vice-Chief of Staff command of Fidel V. Ramos, both withdrew their support from the government and called upon the resignation of then President Marcos. They responsibly barricaded Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo and had their troops ready to combat against possible armed attack organized by Marcos and his troops. The Catholic Church represented by Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin along with the priests and nuns called for the support of all Filipinos who believed in democracy. Radyo Veritas aired the message of Cardinal Sin that summoned thousands of Filipinos to march the street of EDSA. It was an empowering demonstration that aimed to succeed peacefully with the intervention of faith. Nuns kneeled in front of tanks with rosaries in their hands and uttering their prayers. With the power of prayers, the armed marine troops under the command of Marcos withdrew from the site. Celebrities expressed their support putting up a presentation to showcase the injustices and the anomalies carried out by the Marcos administration. Finally, in the morning of February 25, 1986, Corazon Aquino took the presidential oath of office, administered by the Supreme Court Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee at Club Filipino located in San Juan. Aquino was proclaimed as the 11th President of the Republic of the Philippines. She was the first lady president of the country. People rejoiced over their victory proving the success of the EDSA People’s Power Revolution, the historic peaceful demonstration. Although in 2001, there was an attempt to revive People Power in the efforts to oust then President Joseph Estrada, it was not as strong as the glorifying demonstration in 1986. The bloodless, People Power Revolution in EDSA renewed the power of the people, strengthened the meaning of democracy and restored the democratic institutions of government.Continue to the 5th Republic (1986) up to the Present Time.

http://www.philippine-history.org/edsa-people-power-revolution.htm