Edsa, Where Did We Go Wrong? (part 1)
What happened to us? Where did we go wrong? I remember back in 1986; I was with friends at EDSA (Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue) during the height of the EDSA uprising that toppled the dictatorship. People were full of hope that real (radical) change was coming, that finally there would be nationalist industrialization and agrarian reform to address the basic problems of the country. There were a lot of progressive people in government as a result of the uprising. Naturally, some people on the right wing of the political spectrum felt threatened. The military establishment became restive and Gringo Honasan, one of the leaders of RAM (Reform the Armed Forces Movement), launched a coup d’état on August 28, 1987, that shook the (President Corazon) Aquino regime. The effect of this coup was noticeable since progressive elements were slowly leaving or were told to leave the government. By November 12,1986, Rolando “Ka Lando” Olalia, leader of the Militant KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno), or May One Movement, and a major player in the anti-dictatorship struggle, together with his buddy Leonor Alay-ay, were abducted and killed.
On the fateful day of January 22, 1987, twenty-two thousand farmers who were marching and demanding land were mowed down at the foot of the Mendiola Bridge, killing thirteen people and injuring countless others. This became known as the Mendiola Massacre. All these successive steps of the Aquino regime were indicative of the plan to declare a total war policy (1987) against its own people and to protect foreign interests. I remember clearly that on the day when the massacre happened, I heard staccato gunfire along Claro M. Recto and Morayta Avenue, near Far Eastern University. I saw panic-stricken, bloodstained, and shoeless peasants entering the university campus. The gates were shut by the security and people where running back and forth. I thought that a revolution was starting; I mean, the real revolution of the people. The Aquino regime in its first year in power never showed any indication that it was going to implement decisive changes in the economy and government. If there was any change, then it was the consolidation of globalization. Globalization means liberalization, contractualization, and privatization, among others.
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| Courtesy of La Naval De Manila (YouTube) |
After several years came EDSA 2. I was with the Southern Tagalog (south of Metro Manila) contingent and the first ones to arrive at EDSA. I also had a chance to sing with the workers cultural at the EDSA Shrine stage, where Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took her oath as the new President. Once the streets were filled with the mobilization coming from the regions and the capital, people from the city started to gather. It never took long for the Estrada government to relinquish power and the mantle of authority was transferred to Macapagal-Arroyo (also known as GMA), who held power from 2001 to 2010. She became President through the power of the movement and so, in my analysis, was the most unstable of all.
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| Courtesy of PinoyWeekly.org |
During the 2004 elections, Fernando Poe Jr., a famous movie star, ran against GMA. He was believed to have won the election by a wide margin; but due to fraud, the GMA regime held sway to the great dismay of the people. GMA was accused of influencing the outcome of the elections and was in the center of the “Hello Garci Scandal.” This was the period when the movement started growing in strength, and marches on the streets for reforms were really becoming humongous that both lanes of Commonwealth Avenue were usually filled with thousands of people. Given this situation, the prevailing regime became tainted with political killings allegedly executed under the so called “Oplan Bantay Laya” (military plan) that targeted political activists such as priests, pastors, nuns, students, lawyers, doctors, workers, and peasants numbering around 1,920. I learned from some peasant leaders that the regime did this to terrorize and paralyze the people’s movement against neo-liberal policies. Movement, as mentioned here, was the clamor for comprehensive social change with industrialization and genuine agrarian reform as its core, as contraposed to the sham agrarian policy being implemented up to the present.
Where Did We Go Wrong? (conclusion)
by Levy Abad
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| Courtesy of Flickrhivemind.net |
The greatest lesson that I learned from being a part of these historical events is that, it is never the great personalities that make history but the people. As long as a president, no matter who she or he may be, does not implement the people’s agenda, then the people have the power to remove their leader. We have seen this time and again. When Benigno S. Aquino III became President through elections, people were happy and hopeful and were thinking that progress would happen. But having been in power for almost five years, he still follows the script of the same puppetry narrative. Up to now, even the Constitution that was ratified during the term of his mother, former President Corazon Aquino, particularly the provisions on nationalist industrialization and agrarian reform found in Article 12, have not been implemented. The slogan of the present regime–“Daang Matuwid”–is just another crooked road and a plan that affirms neo-liberal policies.
In an article posted on Huffington Blog titled “Philippines ‘Mirage’ Economy: Why it’s worse than a bubble?”, Richard Javad Heydarian writes that, “three years into the Aquino leadership, however, it has little to show in terms of major infrastructural projects and cutting down of red tape and bureaucratic uncertainty. With barely three years left in his office, the [President’s] introduction of decisive measures to arrest the decline of the manufacturing and agricultural sectors, are yet to kick in. The government has missed its targets on the implementation of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension and Reforms (CARPER) to the fury of millions of farmers and rural citizens, while the impending integration of the Philippines into the regional common market will most likely batter its already fragile manufacturing sector, which has been struggling with declining demand in the intraregional production chains in recent years.” That served as another proof of the failure to initiate the implementation of the policies enshrined in Article 12 of the Constitution.
Going back to the Agrarian Reform of the Corazon Aquino regime, Satur Ocampo wrote in his article “At Ground Level,” published in the Winnipeg-based community newspaper Ang Peryodiko (November 16-30, 2014): “Her government asked the Court of Appeals to rule favourably on the Cojuangcos’ appeal, which the court promptly did. In 1987, she issued Proclamation 131 and Executive Order 229, defining her agrarian reform program, which included stock distribution option as a mode of implementation, instead of land distribution. The SDO was incorporated in RA 6657 (CARP), signed in 1988.” This is a proof that Aquino’s Agrarian Reform is bogus. True to the line of thinking of the powers that be, the present regime is also engaged in attempts to change the Philippine charter’s nationalist provisions through ChaCha (Charter Change).
The regimes of Corazon Aquino up to B.S. Aquino III are characterized by betrayal of the Constitution of the Republic where the preamble states “We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society, and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity, the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution.”
The failure of the government to provide decent jobs led to the continuous exodus of professionals, numbering about five thousand daily (2014 statistics). Unfortunately, the country is just a paradise for foreign monopoly corporations and few rich families. If all the regimes failed to implement Nationalist Industrialization and Agrarian Reform that are enshrined in the Constitution, what more can they do to improve the welfare of the people? The Constitution, at the given stage of our people’s history, is the embodiment of the will of the people, thus it is sacred. So what happened to our so called democracy? Where did we go wrong?
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