Right at this very moment (in case my computer time is wrong, it is around 12:00 noon, February 25, 2008, Philippines) , people are gathering at various points in Metro Manila and the environs to march to Baclaran Church or at the People Power Monument in EDSA to commemorate the 1986 popular uprising that amazed that world. Similar actions are happening in the other major cities.
Forces affiliated with Laban ng Masa will rally at the People Power Monument at 1pm, and then proceed to the EDSA Shrine at Ortigas for a mass led by Bishop Bacani and Bishop Yniguez at 2pm. Part of this mobilization will march to Ateneo to hear a protest concert by various artists. Part will proceed to Baclaran for a mass at 3pm with the Black and White Movement, with Jun Lozada and Cory Aquino. Bayan and its affiliated organizations will march to Mendiola for a rally.
In all of these mobilizations, the objective is to press the government to resolve the NBN-ZTE scandal and to punish the guilty, and for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign as president. In the slogans and placards, the issues may appear off-topic, but really not so: JOBS, LAND, JUSTICE, SCHOOLS, HOUSING, HEALTH, SECURITY. These are the casualties of corruption and greed.
The organizations involved in these democratic, non-violent actions today are the coalitions Black and White Movement, Code NGO, Laban ng Masa, and Bayan, to name the major ones. The party list groups supportive of these actions and directly engage in the mobilizations are Akbayan! Citizens' Action Party, Partido ng Manggagawa, and Bayan Muna (you should remember these groups in the next party list elections). I hope more cooperative leaders will join these coalitions and organizations. Like Jun Lozada, none of these organizations is saint (and not even the Holy Roman Catholic Church is holy I can assure you that). Like GMA, they need redemption. Unlike GMA, they are working for their redemption instead of denying their need for it.
Pro-GMA forces might find the rallies being held today as nothing more than a ploy to destabilize the government and pave the way for an illegal power grab. The truth is that these same forces (the legal Left, the civil society groups, the church groups) have always mobilized the people on issues that matter to their lives, so that the people will have the means to fight back through direct public actions in the streets.
But even all these forces taken together are weak compared to the enormous clout of the elite. It is the politicians (and the military) at the very top of the power pyramid that are able to finally engineer a solution in times of political crises, and right now we do not yet know the emerging elite consensus on what to do with GMA. We can be sure that the elite factions are now trying to forge a solution that protects their interests, even at the expense of justice. And this is why resolving political crisis shouldn't be a matter just for the politicians to handle; the people's forces should be involved, as they are now.
Imagine a society in which there are no protest rallies to pressure government to be accountable for election scandals as large as Garci's, corruption in the scale of NBN's, extrajudicial killings to such a scale that alarmed the highest levels of the United Nations, looting of benefits intended for poor farmers in the scale as large as JocJoc Bolante's.
Imagine a society of sheeps and cowards and plainly of people who do not care. That's the kind society that should make us leave this country and adopt another. But for as long as there are people like those that are gathered at Baclaran and Mendiola and EDSA today, there's hope. Direct street actions, even in the face of repression, inspire our people that something is happening to change their lives. Where people march to make their government accountable, there is hope.
Showing posts with label EDSA people power revolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDSA people power revolution. Show all posts
Monday, February 25, 2008
Memories of the 1986 People Power Revolution
Revolutionary greetings to one and all on the 22nd anniversary of the 1986 people's uprising (or EDSA 1) that ended the Marcos dictatorship and restored democracy in our country.
We were at the headquarters of TAPAT (Tanggol Karapatan) near the Bustillos Church when we heard news that sections of the military had withdrawn support from the Marcos government. That was February 22, 1986, the beginning of 4 days of final confrontation between the Marcos government and the anti-dictatorship forces.
TAPAT was a coalition that monitored the February 7 elections. It was headed by Sister Mercy Contreras. I was then a volunteer for TAPAT, as a contribution from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, in which i worked as a full time research staff, being an out-of-school teacher at that time. TAPAT was composed of organizations that did not want to participate in the campaign by BAYAN to boycott the presidential elections. They formed an anti-fraud coalition instead. I remember a heated debate between the volunteers: our job is to objectively monitor and report the conduct of the elections, said one side. No, our job is to expose how the fascist government is going to rig the elections, said the other side, my side.
It did not mean we avoided the anti-dictatorship rallies that were for election boycott. In one of the BAYAN rallies at Liwasang Bonifacio, I remembered one speaker saying: the kind of democracy that they (presumably those who were participating in the elections, whether on Marcos or Cory side) want is the democracy of debates, the democracy of endless speeches in Congress.
We knew what he meant. Democracy has to be more than just that. But the speech and the entire rally showed how completely isolated the mainstream Left was from the popular mood and perception: that here is a chance to boot out Marcos by voting for Cory. Practically a million people showed up in the pro-Cory rally at the Luneta (just before the February 7 elections, i can't recall). We were there as TAPAT, distributing anti-Marcos leaflets, which we wrote and which we mimeographed, and soliciting coins to a biscuits can. The can was filled with coins and 20-pesos bill.
Attention focused on the Batasang Pambansa, where the election returns were being delivered, and the PICC, where the COMELEC was conducting the national canvassing. In one evening at the Batasan grounds, we formed a human cordon around a suspicious vehicle carrying ballot boxes until opposition lawyers could file their protest. More people were coming. Ham radio was very popular among the young then (this wasn't yet the age of cellular phones). People were exchanging information and making speeches against Marcos over ham radio. A rock band called Agos volunteered to sing for the crowd, and asked to use our vehicle to bring in their instruments. It was a lively evening, songs and speeches. In our way to a residence in Fairview where we stayed for the night, Agos found that their amplifier was gone.
The following morning we were at the BAYAN rally at the Plaza Miranda. BAYAN was still holding separate rallies and mobilizations from the largely spontaneous and unorganized pro-Cory mobilizations. BAYAN leader Lean Alejandro knew we were at the great evening at the Batasan, an evening BAYAN could not be a part of. He asked: what happened? what was your role? what captured the imagination of the masses? TAPAT was probably the only organized mass force that evening at the Batasan. Lean probably knew how tied his hand was in trying pursuing a policy of opposing the dictatorship and not supporting Cory's electoral battle at the same time.
That evening or the next i guess, we headed to the PICC to gather whatever more information after receiving news of a walk out of COMELEC staff due to the manipulations of the election tallies. Plainclothes at the PICC mocked us, and one of them softly chanted Cory! Cory! while grinning maliciously. I realized it was because they thought we were kids, and at our early 20s we looked like thin, starving, unwashed kids. We entered the main hall and were amazed at the spectacular array of probably hundreds of computers. The government had to make this impressive technical set-up to hide fraud, i thought.
There were mobilizations almost everyday before and after the elections, as outdoor street protests and as in-door rallies. ACT volunteered to the foreign press several public school teachers who narrated commonplace, almost uncontroversial, instances of election irregularities, vote buying, and intimidations during the election. In one conference called by Teachers Alliance for Justice Against Corruption (TAJAC), which was organized by Rene Romero and Raul Segovia, a PUP instructor who earlier expressed in so many words his reservations about street actions suggested TAJAC should organize seminars on Gandhian non-violence. Someone rose up: "hindi na kailangan! magmartsa na tayo sa kalsada!" Now, 22 years later, i realized that at least i could have suggested we could conduct teach-ins about Gandhian tactics right during the rallies. (Gandhi said: "be the change you seek in the world.")
On February 22, after days of rallies, we TAPAT volunteers were taking a nap, lying on streamers and placards. Someone from the neighbors or from the landlords knocked, advising us to take extra caution under the entirely changed situation when Enrile and Ramos withdrew support from Marcos. That evening and for 3 days we were at EDSA. On February 25, we were at the gates of Malacanang.
We were at the headquarters of TAPAT (Tanggol Karapatan) near the Bustillos Church when we heard news that sections of the military had withdrawn support from the Marcos government. That was February 22, 1986, the beginning of 4 days of final confrontation between the Marcos government and the anti-dictatorship forces.
TAPAT was a coalition that monitored the February 7 elections. It was headed by Sister Mercy Contreras. I was then a volunteer for TAPAT, as a contribution from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, in which i worked as a full time research staff, being an out-of-school teacher at that time. TAPAT was composed of organizations that did not want to participate in the campaign by BAYAN to boycott the presidential elections. They formed an anti-fraud coalition instead. I remember a heated debate between the volunteers: our job is to objectively monitor and report the conduct of the elections, said one side. No, our job is to expose how the fascist government is going to rig the elections, said the other side, my side.
It did not mean we avoided the anti-dictatorship rallies that were for election boycott. In one of the BAYAN rallies at Liwasang Bonifacio, I remembered one speaker saying: the kind of democracy that they (presumably those who were participating in the elections, whether on Marcos or Cory side) want is the democracy of debates, the democracy of endless speeches in Congress.
We knew what he meant. Democracy has to be more than just that. But the speech and the entire rally showed how completely isolated the mainstream Left was from the popular mood and perception: that here is a chance to boot out Marcos by voting for Cory. Practically a million people showed up in the pro-Cory rally at the Luneta (just before the February 7 elections, i can't recall). We were there as TAPAT, distributing anti-Marcos leaflets, which we wrote and which we mimeographed, and soliciting coins to a biscuits can. The can was filled with coins and 20-pesos bill.
Attention focused on the Batasang Pambansa, where the election returns were being delivered, and the PICC, where the COMELEC was conducting the national canvassing. In one evening at the Batasan grounds, we formed a human cordon around a suspicious vehicle carrying ballot boxes until opposition lawyers could file their protest. More people were coming. Ham radio was very popular among the young then (this wasn't yet the age of cellular phones). People were exchanging information and making speeches against Marcos over ham radio. A rock band called Agos volunteered to sing for the crowd, and asked to use our vehicle to bring in their instruments. It was a lively evening, songs and speeches. In our way to a residence in Fairview where we stayed for the night, Agos found that their amplifier was gone.
The following morning we were at the BAYAN rally at the Plaza Miranda. BAYAN was still holding separate rallies and mobilizations from the largely spontaneous and unorganized pro-Cory mobilizations. BAYAN leader Lean Alejandro knew we were at the great evening at the Batasan, an evening BAYAN could not be a part of. He asked: what happened? what was your role? what captured the imagination of the masses? TAPAT was probably the only organized mass force that evening at the Batasan. Lean probably knew how tied his hand was in trying pursuing a policy of opposing the dictatorship and not supporting Cory's electoral battle at the same time.
That evening or the next i guess, we headed to the PICC to gather whatever more information after receiving news of a walk out of COMELEC staff due to the manipulations of the election tallies. Plainclothes at the PICC mocked us, and one of them softly chanted Cory! Cory! while grinning maliciously. I realized it was because they thought we were kids, and at our early 20s we looked like thin, starving, unwashed kids. We entered the main hall and were amazed at the spectacular array of probably hundreds of computers. The government had to make this impressive technical set-up to hide fraud, i thought.
There were mobilizations almost everyday before and after the elections, as outdoor street protests and as in-door rallies. ACT volunteered to the foreign press several public school teachers who narrated commonplace, almost uncontroversial, instances of election irregularities, vote buying, and intimidations during the election. In one conference called by Teachers Alliance for Justice Against Corruption (TAJAC), which was organized by Rene Romero and Raul Segovia, a PUP instructor who earlier expressed in so many words his reservations about street actions suggested TAJAC should organize seminars on Gandhian non-violence. Someone rose up: "hindi na kailangan! magmartsa na tayo sa kalsada!" Now, 22 years later, i realized that at least i could have suggested we could conduct teach-ins about Gandhian tactics right during the rallies. (Gandhi said: "be the change you seek in the world.")
On February 22, after days of rallies, we TAPAT volunteers were taking a nap, lying on streamers and placards. Someone from the neighbors or from the landlords knocked, advising us to take extra caution under the entirely changed situation when Enrile and Ramos withdrew support from Marcos. That evening and for 3 days we were at EDSA. On February 25, we were at the gates of Malacanang.
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