Seven year itch

In “Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy” (Alfred W. McCoy) there’s a riveting section on the battle of wills and wits between Ferdinand Marcos and the rebels holed up in Camp Aguinaldo. One big problem was that Marcos was very ill, and McCoy quotes one aide who witnessed Marcos creeping from room to room, brain befuddled by disease and medicines, his situation not helped by General Fabian Ver’s seeming incapacity to undertake genuine generalship. Every time the Marcos government was poised to seize the upper hand, the Palace or the prime movers and shakers in the shaky government would issue contradictory orders, or delay, and delay, and delay…

So it’s not that Marcos was concerned with the well-being of his countrymen, but rather, he delayed too long (Fabian Ver had wanted the massacre to take place as soon as possible; Marcos said no, on TV; to this day, even some of his critics give him credit for doing so); and so, when he ordered the people gathered at Edsa massacred, the momentum had shifted to the rebels.

No one has seriously tackled what condition Joseph Ejercito Estrada was in, during the crucial days and hours his government lost the momentum and crumbled. Looking back, it happened quickly. Prior to the point Angelo Reyes convinced the military’s top brass to, as he put it, engage in mutiny, the advantage, in terms of legitimacy and brute force, lay with Estrada. Even when the defections began to gather pace, he knew, somehow, that his greatest ally was time. Up to the morning of the day he fell from power, it seemed quite possible he could counter-attack by summoning reinforcements from the provinces.

In retrospect, Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Ejercito Estrada knew what had to be done, but were incapable of summoning the iron-clad resolve to do what needed to be done; they hesitated when their enemies, normally more cautious than they, had themselves thrown caution to the winds.

Could it be that even the most self-confident leaders have an innate sense of when their time is up? Recently, Sylvia Mayuga reviewed the latest volume of memoirs by Carmen Guerrero Nakpil. Her review tackles an important question -when comes the time for those on opposite sides in a great divide, to reconcile and understand?- but let me lift, from her review, an interesting vignette. This is Nakpil, by way of Mayuga, recalling asking Madame Marcos if she’d watched the funeral of Ninoy Aquino:

I asked her whether she and the President had watched Ninoy’s funeral on TV, and she said, yes, they’d done so, together, in his bedroom. And that they’d been crushed, struck dumb by the enormity of what they were seeing on the video screen. She added that they had felt overwhelmingly humiliated because they had little inkling of the public mood, and that Marcos had said, “So, after all these years, all our efforts, our trying and striving, it has come to this?”

Ninoy did not die that day on that sunny, Sunday afternoon in August 1983, at the Manila International Airport, for that was when he began to live forever in the hearts of his countrymen. It was Ferdinand Marcos who died that day, and he knew it.

That psychic body blow for Marcos, surely it sapped his will to fight for his political life? And Estrada, who’d managed a huge crowd at the Luneta after the first protests began, who’d managed the biggest plurality since 1992, perhaps it was a psychic body blow, too, to see all those kids banging pots and pans along Katipunan…

In contrast, both Marcos’s and Estrada’s successors immediately took to heart, a political reality underlined by Marcos’s departure and that of Estrada: possession is 9/10ths of the law. Who knows if, allowed to go to the Ilocos, Marcos could have actually waged a civil war with his command bunker in Sarrat; and there is the “what if?” if Estrada, after leaving the Palace by barge, had holed up in Makati and dared those rallying at Edsa to engage in urban street fighting there, or even in the crowded streets of San Juan -or anywhere else.

Cory Aquino faced down coup attempts by holing up in the Palace’s Guest House and her Arlegui residence (who can forget Fidel Ramos’s wanting, at one point, to drop napalm on White Plains? Or to be precise, as I heard it anyway, asking the Americans to napalm White Plains); President Arroyo’s done the same. Neither were befuddled by disease or drink during those crisis times, both seemed more willing to take extreme measures. Pragmatically speaking, if self-defense is the most basic right, then everything the President’s done to defend her office has been correct.

In fact the problem seems to be that the fall of Marcos and Estrada did to people power what the same events did to the media: make the participants so cocksure that faced with what they should have expected all along, no one had the will to deal with the challenges creatively, and sensibly. Because of the blunders of beleaguered leaders, Edsa 1 and Dos succeeded when they could easily have been crushed. The media, because of the circumstances surrounding the media’s reawakening after Ninoy’s murder, has gotten used to having a privileged place in our politics that depended not so much on the law, but on the toleration and fear of those in power. Confronted by leaders with no qualms about respecting informal parameters on political behavior, the public and the media found themselves facing the full might of the state.

This point is explained thoroughly by Writer’s Block, taking a cue from Hegel::

A revolution succeeds only with an implicit acquiescence of the State, at least at its outset. If Czar Nicholas had the same tyrannical character as his predecessor Ivan III, dubbed The Terrible, not only would the Bolsheviks have not won, but liberty would be almost inexistent. And if Ramon Blanco, the Governor-General of the Philippines acted swiftly and surgically when the revolution erupted, as did his successor Camilo Polavieja, then history would have been written differently, and Bonifacio would have merely graced the list of leaders of failed rebellions.

The masses do not have power in revolutionary movements. They are oftentimes led by the middle class or even the aristocracy (who parrot the ideologies in fashion without really comprehending it). The masses rallied to the French Revolution, but it was the intellectuals, hailing primarily from the lower middle class or bourgeoisie, who led them against the aristocracy, the Church and the King. The middle class intellectuals are the ones who have both the time and the energy to divest in the ideologies of liberty and rights of men. There are but few exceptions to this, and there the revolution succeeded only because the State was significantly weak in the first place (the Chinese Revolution, in fact, could be better classified as a “civil war”).

In the case of the political class, Edsa I, the product of a unique set of circumstances, turned into a blueprint for political action. Many of those veterans tried to apply that blueprint during Edsa Dos (and even Edsa Tres, and after 2005). Except the President, or perhaps more precisely, her husband, had come up with a mutation that guaranteed success, not least because it was successfully camouflaged by the trappings of traditional People Power. She came to recognize something quite early on, a point raised by Writer’s block: revolts thrive when given the space by the powers-that-be, to grow and flourish.

A view I’ve been developing is that in a society where the transmission of culture has broken down, rhetorical appeals lose their effectivity; they cannot mobilize people or even if they do, the mobilization loses focus and the firmness of purpose that comes from a shared appreciation of the words that mobilized the people; the glue loses its stickiness, movements become unstuck. Edsa Dos was built, in large part, on nostalgia for Edsa; but since those who’d taken part in Edsa had neglected transmitting to younger generations The Road to Edsa I, younger people at Edsa Dos lacked staying power (and there’s the possibility, which of course those in question will dispute, that their attention spans are just so much shorter, for anything at all). Which is why instead of keeping at the grindstone, people at Edsa Dos have retreated to a state of disillusionment and moving on to the departure lounge (also, the changing nature of work: a gainfully-employed middle class youth in the Call Center industry cannot, even if he or she wanted to, engage in political advocacy).

I’ll put it this way: superficially, the recipe for People Power seems to be: unpopular president + explosive revelations + economic downturn + angry prelates + an appeal to past greatness, based on shared values + get enough people on the streets + officer corps defects = regime change. The last factor, the top brass, taking its cue from the presence of all the previous ingredients. But as Tiananmen Square proved, the antidote to People Power is very simple: the application of force. Ruthlessly. Actually, an earlier example would be how People Power in Romania ended up in a civil war situation. Edsa Tres gave us a taste of what such a situation would be like, and people have instinctively shrunk from that possibility ever since.

Another complication is how unprepared our society is, to recognize the Left as part of the body politic. A tacit agreement seems to have been reached with the Left, during Edsa Dos, where the Left worked more or less discreetly with the other players (for example, during the “sleepy” periods during those protest days, the Left ensured there would be people at Edsa in the morning and lunchtime). The Left thus managed to make up for missing the bus during Edsa in 1986 (much as their revisionism denies that, of course). Since 2001, however, the Left has found itself unable to really find a place for itself in legitimate politics. From 2005, in particular, while committed and disciplined, the Left had to contend with the usual problems of its dogmatism alienating other political players, and its cause proving itself less than attractive to the broader public (for many reasons: ideological, and also, their past alliances).

But you can’t have it both ways. Either the Left must be embraced as part of the body politic, or the alternative is the tactic pursued by the administration: all-out persecution or war. If liquidating the Left is wrong, then there is no half-way measure: they must be embraced as a force like any other, entitled to participate like any other. But our society seems unprepared for this, and the best it can offer is tokenism.

As for me, I think that Edsa Dos can no longer be separated from Edsa Tres, they are indivisible. A common thread in my articles on Edsa Dos and Edsa Tres was this ditty:

Gloria, Gloria labandera!
Gloria, Gloria labandera!
Gloria, Gloria labandera!
Labandera si Gloria!

Which I first heard sung minutes after the President took her oath at the Edsa Shrine; it was, of course, the theme song of Edsa Tres though oddly enough, little heard since.
My account of Edsa Dos can be found in Six years since (now, seven years since!). It’s best not to embroider recollections, so my article published soon after Edsa Dos is there, recounting my experiences, as well as the debates that ensued and my thoughts several years on. For more recent thoughts on Edsa Dos, see Half a People Power, an attempt at a synthesis.

As for Edsa Tres, there’s my piece, The May Day Rebellion, also written days after the events took place. This comment, in CJV’s blog, by Torn & Frayed, is very interesting to me, because it only shows the limitations of eyewitness accounts and experiences: we had diametrically opposite thoughts and experiences when it came to Edsa Tres.

Anyway, check out Bloggers Remember People Power 2. See also Recovery Room on Edsa, and Misteryosa and Life in Random and Color Me Bleue (who was in the march that I wrote about) on Edsa Dos. While goodbye blue monday participated in it, vicariously.

Addendum:

In Airbrushing the Left out of Edsa 2 and the body politic, Tonyo Cruz takes exception to this blog entry. I hope he’ll re-read both the entry, and what I wrote at the time: I saw what took place in Mendiola and the central role Bayan Muna played in taking the protests to the gates of the Palace.

As for the particular portion he took exception to, this is what Teddy Casino wrote (View from the Street: Different Strokes for Different Folks (in Doronila, Amando. Between Fires: Fifteen Perspectives on the Estrada Crisis. Philippines: Anvil Publishing, Inc. & Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc., 2001), pp. 259-260:

Around 4 a.m., January 17, the first among several meetings among the major formations at EDSA was held at the Linden Suites in the Ortigas Center. Among those present were me and Carol Pagaduan-Araullo of Bayan and Estrada Resign Movement, Paul Dominguez, Sen. Alberto Romulo and retired generals Lisandro Abadia and Renato de Villa of the United Opposition, Dan Songco and Francis Pangilinan of Kompil II, Satur Ocampo, Nathaniel Santiago and Vicente Ladlad of Bayan Muna; Joey Lina and Gary Cayton of the Kangkong Brigade; and Triccie and Louie Sison of Couples for Christ.

We identified the requirements for getting as many people as possible to mass on EDSA and mapped out out immediate tasks. Bayan was tasked to bring in the warm bodies, which would come from its organized forces in the youth and student sector, and workers and urban poor communities in Metro Manila…

From an angry and worked-up throng of 30,000 on the night of January 16, the crowd at EDSA had dwindled to around 2,000 by early morning. Most of those who stayed were from the organized groups…

The first morning, the speakers included, among others, a balut vendor, a grandmother, and a seaman who had just returned from abroad. A constant irritation among the various groups at EDSA was the handling of the 24-hour program. The first two days saw Baranay RJ handling the morning program, Bayan and the ERM (Estrada Resign Movement) the afternoon program, and the Kangkong Brigade and Kompil II the evening program.

When complaints of favoritism and the dominance of politicians on the stage arose, the coordinating group decided to form a committee composed of Bayan, Kompil II and the Kangkong Brigade to handle the program. The committee tried to strike a healthy balance between sectoral leaders and politicians on the program…

By lunchtime each day, students from the various schools would start to arrive in numbers. So would members of the various labor unions, urban poor communities and other sectors… By the afternoon of January 19… crowd estimates were as high as 300,000.

As for taking exception to the term “dogmatism,” well, Q.E.D. But seriously, what Tonyo forgets is that the Left may be, to his mind, Bayan Muna and allied groups, but to others the Left includes a broader spectrum which includes the NDF and Bayan Muna but other groups, too: much as, perhaps, some do not consider other such groups part of the Left. For example, no mention of Akbayan could be construed as whitewashing. But this is an unproductive avenue to pursue (covered at length in this entry and this one over at Reds Care).

In the same essay (p.256-257), Teddy Casino recalled the difficulties due to schisms within the Left, and those groups that had allied, in turn, with non-Leftist groups:

Those in activist circles know the longstanding struggle between the “socdems” (social democrats) and the “natdems” (national democrats), which stretches as far back as the First Quarter Storm of 1970. The last time that there was any formal coordination or joint actions between the ND’s and SD’s was in the mid-90s, before the breakup of the ND bloc into the “reaffirmists” and the “rejectionists,” which the SD’s chose to ally themselves with those who had bolted from Bayan.

Near the end of his essay, Casino points to the intra-Left hard feelings that linger:

At the last minute, Msgr. Socrates Villegas appealed to the crowd not to leave EDSA… Curiously, a Sanlakas spokesperson appeared on national TV prodding the people to “preserve the gains of EDSA” by not joining the march.

In another essay in the book, “People Power 2: A Business Perspective,” Guillerno Luz recounted,

It was the relationship with Bayan and Sanlakas that proved the most unusual for the business community. Even before the crisis, I had already met with Teddy Casino, Carol Araullo, and Nathaniel Santiago of Bayan…

Certainly, Bayan broadened my perspective. Joining its rallies in Makati and Mendiola gave me a first hand appreciation of the extent of its network and its mobilization tactics, of the passion with which it pursued its vision, and its high sense discipline when massed in large numbers…

…With persistence and a little luck, we were able to organize a meeting among the TUCP, APL, LSM, Bayan, Sanlakas, Kompil, United Opposition, Copa, Kangkong Brigade, and business groups one Saturday in November. Working out between Bayan and Kompil/LSM such details as the timing of the marches… did not prove that difficult. What did was reconciling the positions of Sanlakas and the business group…

..since the idea was to demonstrate solidarity between labor and business, it was important to have all labor groups present at the Makati rally. We stressed that business would not want to appear endorsing one union at the expense of others. But Sanlakas refused to fly its flag alongside those of other unions, in particular KMU. We were told only the local or company unions could appear alongside competitor unions…

The brief points, then are: no one is airbrushing the Left out of the picture: but not everyone will agree that the Left consists solely of the NDF or Bayan Muna, or KMU, etc. Bayan Muna, for one, tried its best to be a team player, coordinating actions, programs, and conferring with other groups on logistical issues: they held the fort, including mounting the program, mid-morning to late afternoons.

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Manuel L. Quezon III.

104 thoughts on “Seven year itch

  1. Manolo, thanks for the link! I’d like to repeat what i said in that entry:

    I believe that EDSA Dos as a revolution has been defeated because it has experienced more than its share of betrayals. The worst of these to my mind, is not GMA’s pardon of Erap, which to me is just a coup de grace. To me, the worst betrayal was by the participants themselves who chose expediency over the ideals of EDSA Dos when they choose not to hold Gloria accountable for electoral fraud because, in their view, she was the ‘lesser evil‘.

  2. We need to make sure the “sanctity of the ballot” is protected because when used properly it is the great equalizer. Then once and for all rally behind leaders who are truly chosen by the people. So it comes to mind that for 2010, the critical decisions will start with the new COMELEC chairman and AFP chief of staff. The former to make sure of honest elections, the latter to guard the ballot (and not to tamper with it).
    Let everyone have a voice, even the left. As it is said in Desiderata “listen to others, even the dull and ignorant, they too have their story.”

  3. the worst betrayal was by the participants themselves who chose expediency over the ideals of EDSA Dos when they choose not to hold Gloria accountable for electoral fraud

    for the simple reason that they don’t want to appear moronic having sanctified her. a form of self-denial.

  4. I was there. I was in EDSA seven years ago. I went there alone. I fought there with my own battle and I won, we won! But seven years after, it seems to me that our country turned from bad to worst. Philippine politics is now a one big circus, and I have this personal feeling that all my EDSA DOS sacrifices were just wasted. My appetite for joining political rallies has been spoiled and now lost. I don’t know if I will go back and shout in EDSA again thesedays. My voice is too precious to waste for them.

  5. Bleue’s sentiment is; I belive, shared by many and one big reason why protests against Gloria don’t and can’t gather enough support.

  6. I was there too. I was one of the first people (along with my friend Janice, who I haven’t seen since then) in the middle of the intersection of paseo and ayala when the text brigade erupted. I remember calling my (now ex-) wife and telling her, “I’m doing this for our daughter, I want her to grow up in a better place.”

    I walked from boni to the EDSA shrine and listened to the rhetoric. I mostly sat though, or chatted up some of the people around.

    We were all so hopeful then.

    Mind you early on i had my reservations about the Vice-President. There was something just so “off” about her. Sure, she was the daughter of a president, and she was an economist… we were thinking lesser evil back then, and I’d be damned if I was going to leave the country to Erap and his dancing fools.

    Well I don’t know where all of that is now. Whenever there are commemorations like this, all that’s left is a sick feeling in the pit of my gut.

    The feeling of “being had”.

    Never again.

  7. ramrod,
    the ballot as the great equalizer? it is only as good as the choices/candidates you are given. is there anything great about those choices?

  8. Indeed, people has to recognize and realize that the past edsa 1 & 2 experience has never been and never will be a revolution because it was easily corrupted by the minority ruling elites of the big vested interest. The people were used as unwitting tools and pawns in a power grab of corrupt leaders against those equally corrupt in power in a convoluted musical game of thievery if not plunder.

  9. With all the mumbled words spoken because of each tumbled governance of the past administrations, people seemed unsatisfied maybe because they all have different reasons, wants and needs. I’m still holding to my faith and still hoping that(we)all the Filipino shall meet and be merry because we have been alleviated from one of the things that we have been suffering. Even in just a little percentage of our burdens regarding our grave sentiments we should all help one another for once for a good cause such as:
    Power Sector Reform Blog

    Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto “TG” Guingona III has formally launched his power sector reform blog. Entitled NAKUPO (http://www.nakupo-nakupo.blogspot.com/), the blog seeks to be the internet site for Rep. Guingona’s advocacy to bring down electricity rates. His major advocacy includes the Privatization of the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) and the full implementation of the EPIRA law.

    In his previous policy adovacy statements, he sees the NAPOCOR as a mafia controlling the price of electricity by having a virtual monopoly on power generation.

    The blog includes newspaper articles quoting Rep. Guingona’s statements. It also includes transcripts of radio interviews he made in the course of his advocacy. Also available are the two major privilege speeches he made on corruption and questionable dealings of NAPOCOR and that of the Power Sector Assets and Liabilities Management Corporation or PSALM, the agency tasked to privatize NAPOCOR’s assets.

    It is envisioned that with the blog, Rep. Guingona would reach more online citizens, including the private sector and civil society groups with the same concern for lowering of electricity rates.

    The blog will also be Rep. Guingona’s way of building bridge with the more powerful consumer rights blogs which could provide pressure to national government officials to seek meaningful reforms in the power sector.

    *** Got this from a responsible citizen and I’m posting this for all the Filipino people. This is a call for awareness about Rep. Guingona’s advocacy to bring down electricity rates which I know would be a great help for all of us. Visit the site, support the advocacy, and be a responsible citizen. Thankies!

  10. bleue,
    did you really win? did you really cause estrada to leave malacanang? did you seize such victory? or did someone else tell you, we have already a new president and you need not march to malacanang anymore? and did not that “someone” dictate matters ever since?

  11. I’m not saying this applies to all, but the feeling of ‘being had‘ as a reason for tuning out is a little bit too convenient. If it was a ‘President’ FPJ or ‘President’ Noli de Castro who was caught red handed talking to Garci, there will have been lesser problem mobilizing the EDSA Dos crowd. Instead, what we get from otherwise decent folks are rationalizations and as a result, we’re stuck in this low intensity civil war (or its prelude).

  12. @Beancurd

    Personally the moment estrada left the palace, that was my feeeling, even until now. As I said before, it was my personal battle, during those times. I went there without company, with my own agenda, which happened to be the same agenda of the others who were there. Yes there was this “someone” who told me to do it – my conscience.

    Today is a different battle, but I opt not to participate. Why? Because it is so hard to identify thesedays the evils and the lesser evils, but the bottom is – they all are.

  13. @Beancurd

    Personally the moment estrada left the palace, that was my feeeling, even until now. As I said before, it was my personal battle, during those times. I went there without company, with my own agenda, which happened to be the same agenda of the others who were there. Yes there was this “someone” who told me to do it – my conscience.

    Today is a different battle, but I opt not to participate. Why? Because it is so hard to identify thesedays the evils and the lesser evils, but the bottom is – they all are.

    @MLQ thanks for linking my EDSA DOS entry

  14. Seems like what this administration is telling the people is we will not give it up peacefully. They have closed the door to peaceful people power and are leaving the door to civil war wide open.

  15. Fascinating thesis by Anti-thesis i.e. the distinction between revolution and civil war.

    I disagree on the basis that people should stop redefining words and events. Redefine within context, by any means. redefine with new knowledge.

    Revolution: winning entire
    Civil war: schism, splitting into sides

    It’s wrong to say the government has to implicitly allow it. Misguides the public. Makes them… well, Filipinos (you know our obsession of having the culprit, criminal, corrupt admit their wrongdoing even when the evidence more than suffices?)

  16. @migelle

    With all the mumbled words spoken because of each tumbled governance of the past administrations, people seemed unsatisfied maybe because they all have different reasons, wants and needs.

    That’s why people have to think “politically.” Not think like “politicians” but think with a political purpose and a political sense. Of course, every individual has wants and needs.

  17. @Antithesis

    manolo, this is Karl Marx, not Hegel. antithesis follows thesis, according to Hegel, they do not coexist on the same plane. In Marx, they clash.

    Anyway, I disagree with Writer’s Block’s analysis. He is forgetting that Filipino leaders have a glass ceiling, e.g they can never do what America and the world will not tolerate.

    An EDSA I massacre would have been way over Marcos’s head. He’d have to deal with pressure internally and the much more potent pressure externally from the international community. The Philippines was even less dependent to the U.S. and the international community than it is today.

  18. …this is Karl Marx, not Hegel. antithesis follows thesis, according to Hegel, they do not coexist on the same plane. In Marx, they clash. – Brianb

    Thanks for the explanation. So far, i haven’t understood what Marxists mean when they say that ‘Marx stood Hegel on his head‘. My impression is that in Marxist thought, there’s a lot of such inversions going around, although i do not yet comprehend what that means.

    I disagree on the basis that people should stop redefining words and events. Redefine within context, by any means. redefine with new knowledge. – Brianb

    Making new distinctions (and getting rid of old ones) is part of how society reproduces itself. On revolution vs. civil war, i’m reminded of John Quincey Adam’s (played by Anthony Hopkins) closing argument in the movie Amistad:

    James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington… John Adams. We’ve long resisted asking you for guidance. Perhaps we have feared in doing so we might acknowledge that our individuality which we so, so revere is not entirely our own. Perhaps we’ve feared an appeal to you might be taken for weakness. But, we’ve come to understand, finally, that this is not so. We understand now, we’ve been made to understand, and to embrace the understanding… that who we are *is* who we were. We desperately need your strength and wisdom to triumph over our fears, our prejudices, ourselves. Give us the courage to do what is right. And if it means civil war? Then let it come. And when it does, may it be, finally, the last battle of the American Revolution.

  19. “It was Ferdinand Marcos who died that day, and he knew it.”

    Ms Mayuga is right. Marcos was a clever strategist and a brillant tactician — easy to imagine that on the day Aguino was gunned down, his brain, no matter if it was heavily medicated was still churning, force of habit as one might say, telling itself it was the beginning of the end of an era, his era.

  20. “To me, the worst betrayal was by the participants themselves who chose expediency over the ideals of EDSA Dos when they choose not to hold Gloria accountable for electoral fraud because, in their view, she was the ‘lesser evil‘.”

    I totally disagree! To me EDSA 2 is EDSA 2! Electoral fraud is a entirely a different matter that shoudl be settled in other venue than EDSA!

  21. I partially agree with ManuelB: “Seems like what this administration is telling the people is we will not give it up peacefully. They have closed the door to peaceful people power…”. GMA has already demonstrated that she will not be rattled by five or ten thousand marching the streets of metro-Manila. GMA’s published intent is to stay until 2010 and she leaves the anti-GMA only one option — IMPEACHMENT via the articles of the Constitution. She leaves the onus of wholesale damage to the Philippines to the Opposition if the Opposition chooses to risk civil war.

  22. I forgive all the EDSA Dos characters here who have shown some remorse. You’ve been had. I hope you learned your lesson.

  23. ‘About “EDSA Tres”, I really don’t know why they called it that way. Hmmmm, I pity EDSA for being overly used.’

    It can also be…

    ‘About “EDSA Dos”, I really don’t know why they called it that way. Hmmmm, I pity EDSA for being overly used.’

  24. The EDSA formula may not be effective anymore, its gotten overused already, every element studied in detail, even the timings, by none other than those who executed the PERFECT COUP – Gloria and cohorts. So every move is anticipated and pre-empted, choke points are there to prevent formation of a critical mass, and the most paralyzing of all – THE INTERNET, most are secure in their ANONYMITY and protest to their hearts’ content.
    While some are content to do nothing, secure in the safety of distance and take potshots at those who are trying to do something. Somebody once told me, never be indecisive, its a mark of weak leadership, make a good or bad one, at least make a decision.

  25. cvj,

    “To me, the worst betrayal was by the participants themselves who chose expediency over the ideals of EDSA Dos when they choose not to hold Gloria accountable for electoral fraud because, in their view, she was the ‘lesser evil‘.”

    thats not betrayal, its the exercise of freedom of choice.

    why are you insisting your viewpoint on them? they’ve made their choice, just as you made yours. they opted to choose the ‘lesser evil’. they’re the ones literally living with their choice

    they don’t share your definition of ‘accountable’ as ‘kicking her out via people power’

    you better hold the opposition as well for electoral fraud

  26. “To me, the worst betrayal was by the participants themselves who chose expediency over the ideals of EDSA Dos when they choose not to hold Gloria accountable for electoral fraud because, in their view, she was the ‘lesser evil‘.” – cvj

    True. To compromise with truth or integrity is never right, if its a choice – its a wrong choice! Whatever has become of some people, making the wrong look right because its a choice? What if someone chose to take your life tonight? Misguided, visionless, spineless, and gutless, mice…

  27. When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders. ~Veterans Fast for Life

    It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. ~Voltaire

    If… the machine of government… is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. ~Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobediance, 1849

    You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it. ~Malcolm X

  28. The media right now is probably our last line of defense…so what will it be? Still do nothing? Not even a word of encouragement for those who dare?

  29. cvj

    “Marx stood Hegel on his head” refers to Marx’s materialism as opposed to Hegel’s idealism. Marx took Hegel’s dialectic and applied it to the study of human history–historical materialism.

  30. There’s a difference between a philosophy of history that tyrants can use and one that they cannot use and can only be aware of, learn from, etc.

  31. “Marx took Hegel’s dialectic and applied it to the study of human history–historical materialism”

    Hegel’s work is on human history.

    Materialism: the only thing we can comprehend or is even worth discussing about is “matter.” Or in even dumber terms: what you see, hear, etc. is what happens.

    Idealism: ideas, not just material things, are worth considering too. It’s worth everybody’s time to think about the immaterial.

    When Hegel used dialectic (and he didn’t even use it very often) he used it on history in an “idealist” sense (considering both matter and ideas)

    When Marx did it, it was on a materialist sense. Therefore it’s easy to understand how he came up with the clash of classes. Because he wasn’t interested in ideas but only in the material. What else is there if you only have people and their actions to consider? Unlike Hegel, who came up with the “spirit of civilizations.”

    From Wikipedia entry “Dialectic”:

    Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed Hegel was “standing on his head,” and endeavoured to put him back on his feet, ridding Hegel’s logic of its orientation towards philosophical idealism, and conceiving what is now known as materialist or Marxist dialectics. This is what Marx had to say about the difference between Hegel’s dialectics and his own

    here’s Karl Marx:

    My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of ‘the Idea,’ he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of ‘the Idea.’ With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.”

    Marx

  32. Revolution (and EDSA) summons many things. Among them, I believe, is the fallacy of Edsa 1 placed in similar footing with Edsa 2, 3, etc., if there is such a thing as a number that comes after the first. Aside from the rather illusory ideal of putting down a “tyrant,” the rest break apart in their characterization.

    In the first place, is Edsa 1 a “revolution” in the Marxian sense? (or, did “People Power” radically altered Philippine society as “true” revolutions elsewhere successfully changed theirs?)

  33. BrianB:

    “Marx took the dialectic as a force, not as a description of history, which is what it originally was.” I take that you mean, it’s a prescription for history based on equality? (as in Marx’s ‘end of history’ dominated by the ruling class?)

  34. bleue, “I don’t know if I will go back and shout in EDSA again thesedays. My voice is too precious to waste for them.” Can’t blame you. Philippine politics has gone so bad and appears going to the dogs, as many cynics (or critics) put it. They and those who missed it, somehow wish they were there in Edsa 1; they would like to raise the phoenix from its asses.

    Would you consider joining again, if it’s led NOT by opportunistic politicians, but by non-partisan, “clean” fighters who want this “morally bankrupt” leadership OUT?

  35. “I take that you mean, it’s a prescription for history based on equality”

    Not a prescription but an interpretation. These philosophers want an explanation of how everything works like theoretical scientists.

    That’s really what I find curious with Marxism. Philosophy is not a prescription like religious law. You don’t have to force a philosophy to become truth.

  36. BrianB, got it! btw, where are you based at? Just curious, you quickly responded to my post.

  37. hawaiianguy,

    Would you consider joining again, if it’s led NOT by opportunistic politicians, but by non-partisan, “clean” fighters who want this “morally bankrupt” leadership OUT?”

    By all means hawaiianguy, I will. But I don’t see that coming (at least now) because the opportunistic politicians are using every single opportunity to have their asses seen there, well that’s why they were tagged as opportunistic afterall. Tell me, how can you join an ouster call led and participated by the personas we wanted out seven years ago and their allies now that were one of us during EDSA DOS.

  38. Bleue, “Tell me, how can you join an ouster call led and participated by the personas we wanted out seven years ago and their allies now that were one of us during EDSA DOS.”

    Maybe, you got to be a bit more discerning now, there are still a few who are not “evil,” or haven’t been polluted yet. I read your excellent blog, some people you intimately know may have other views. Listen to them, re-assess your current position.

    Some people change, for good or bad. Some sinners repent and become good, saintly ones become sinners. Even Jesus would accept a sinner-do-gooder.

  39. hawaiianguy,

    Got your point. Thanks. I am sure there are straight people in politics. I was too harsh and irresponsible with my statement on that. Let me revise that. Anyway, still, the evils exist out there.

  40. I felt sorry for the straight public servants, they are also being dragged to dirt by the whole system they are in. For sure there are still “few” out there, with a hope that they will not be among the evils.

  41. “gloria labandera”. as far as i see, a most nonsensical, hollow-brained, taunting ever produced by a homo sapien. obviously intended as a put-down, it doesn’t cut the mustard at all. if it meant to ridicule the president, it only succeeds in highlighting the vacuousness of the mind that authored it. being labandera may be a humble occupation but how can it demean anybody to be one? it’s neither insulting nor amusing anymore than being a salesman or a computer operator, or a janitor, is.

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