VIEWING GENUINE PEOPLE POWER

EDSA 2 always crops up as a topic in many political discussions. Until now, there are many people who view it as an important and therefore "repeatable" measure for unseating officials.

Actually, EDSA 2 is highly different from EDSA 1. Edsa 2 should not have happened because our country was and is already under a new Constitution which Cory's administration herself passed.

In the first People Power, we unseated a dictator, someone who had been in power for 14 years already and who was issuing laws under his name, which is strictly a violation of people's rights then and now. Using arms against him and his cohorts was not a good idea. In fact the people opted to go abroad rather than take up arms and try to shoot down his soldiers.

So when we conducted the People Power in 1986, it was because the snap elections were being fraudulently managed again. We were supposed to elect the next president of the country. And the dictator had the gall to put himself up as a candidate again, after 14 years of power. After the closing of the voting, the counting was being twisted to give more favorable votes to the dictator and his candidates as the people realized when the Comelec computerized counting staff walked out. That was already the highest form of anti-people act -- to dismiss, to distort the people's act for good democratic governance of elections. Moreover, that dictator's administration was thick in the plot to destroy, murder those opposing it as what had happened to the husband of Cory. Therefore, against the dictator's misuse of power, for being a dictator, and for his instituting anti-democratic processes, People Power was conducted.

When Cory assumed power, she dissolved, put up a revolutionary government and tasked a group of people to rewrite the constitution which was ratified afterwards by the people. That Constitution is now prevailing in the land.

Then in 1998, the first president of the country to win landslide in the elections was seated. But all throughout his terms he was being maligned. Who should unseat him then but the courts. Yet the impeachment court of Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide then did not remain independent, as it should have been and should be for all times. Instead, he did not dismiss the impeachment court nor did he ask those who walked out like Joker Arroyo et al to return and finish the proceedings. Instead he joined the fray in Edsa and swore into power, the worst distortion of the laws of the land.

That Edsa 2 so-called also had other questions raised: can the AFP chief of staff turn his back on the commander-in-chief who was elected by the people? Can senators who were part of the impeachment court skip their pledge to uphold the law? Is it possible for any group of people to dismiss all the provisions of any Constitution in order to institute new changes in governance -- people and process -- all the time?

The people asked: "where and when will this end?"

There were many personal failings on the part of Erap then, but we have laws to deal with them. People Power is a process that has been superceded by the court processes installed under the new constitution. Davide broke those rules and joined the "fray" shedding off the independence of the Judiciary as a third branch of government. All those who swore and witnessed the swearing in of gloria are now in positions of power -- namely Angelo Reyes, who has been roaming around various departments and now in the energy department uncontrolling the rising oil prices, Davide now in the United Nations as a representative and oiling his way into the officialdom of the organization, etcetera.

That is why Cory apologized to Erap. Under Edsa 2, she herself became part of the group that broke that adherence to the New Constitution which her administration promulgated and got ratified by the people. The old constitution was nullified by the dictator and instead martial laws were instituted. Hence it was just right to install the new Constitution, and that should have been followed and should be followed until now.

Would Cory have earned the sympathies of the public after her death had she chosen to keep mum about her mistaken participation in Edsa 2? I do not think so. During the last rallies that Cory was joining, very few were answering her calls. In fact, the crowd at the anti-Charter Change in the 90's produced a thin crowd, thinner than what M. Velarde could muster under his El Shaddai group. Why because the crowd expected the Ramos administration to uphold the law and to follow the constitutional provision of no reelection for the presidency. Unless that law was revised, then the people viewed everything as status quo. Only after her apology, and when the rallies against gloria restarted hinting at the displeasure of the people against her administration, the fraudulent way she and her family have been amassing wealth, the way Congress has become a rubber stamp for her "Marcos-like" administration of justice, the way she has controlled the decisions of so-called independent Constitutional agencies like the Sandiganbayan and the Civil Service Commission, did the people saw the need for rallies and demonstrations but not necessarily a People Power act.

So 2010 will be test of wills -- that of the people versus vested interest.

To be a leader is to listen to the pulse of the people. To be a leader is to learn how to apologize for mistakes and to correct one's actions. Cory did the right thing in apologizing to Erap -- why because she was instrumentally used by some other groups to lend credence, to give an imprimatur to what was tacitly an anti-Constitutional act during the EDSA 2.

That is why, EDSA 2 remains as EDSA 2, not People Power 2. There is a wide difference between the two. The former was run by those with vested interests who are now in positions of power and have not improved the administration of anti-poverty measures for the people.

VOX POPULI means Voice of the people of the Philippines not voice of vested interests. People Power means power of the People of the Philippines, not power of corrupt interests.





Painting by Diego Rivera