The Gardener thought he should share again a remembrance of past events occasioned by certain dates. Very few people remember April 6, 1978 and the movement that it more definitely formed which led to one event after another culminating in the 4 days of February 1986. Hereunder is a paper he delivered at the first public reunion of the April 6th Liberation Movement in 1986.
AN ANALYSIS OF THE PEOPLE’S URBAN INSURRECTION
Prior to the success of people power in February 1986, at least three major strategies were offered to the Filipino people to rid the nation of the US-backed Marcos dictatorship.
Sans personality advocates, the three were: (A) the strategy of protracted people’s war or PPW; (B) the purely electoral strategy or ES; and (C) the strategy of people’s urban insurrection or PUI.
Although strategies (A) and (B) had, by far, the bigger number of adherents throughout the many years of the dictatorship, in the end, it was strategy (C) that enabled democracy to triumph over tyranny. On February 25th, 1986, people power toppled down the dictatorial regime.
The Elements of the PUI Strategy
The Subjective Factor – The attitude urged on activists by the proponents of the PUI Strategy related to the simple but extremely difficult task of being open to changing reality and being contemporaneous with the present.
Openness to reality meant, first of all, the rejection of sectarianism and the acceptance that no one individual, group, or organization really makes history alone. This meant that the claim, implicit or explicit, that outside one’s group, there could be no revolution had to be considered as ridiculous as the medieval claim that outside the church, there would be no salvation. For it is the people who make history. The people – the majority populace – at certain crucial moments cease to be mere objects and awaken to become true subjects of history, directing the latter’s course until a next stage of “normalcy” is reached and they tend again to be less participative in the historical process.
In their reading of current history, the PUI proponents observed that the crucial moment had come on at least two occasions: April 6, 1978 and August 21-31, 1983.
April 6th, 1978, after which date the urban guerilla A6LM or April 6th Liberation Movement was named, marked the first clear occasion of massive people’s urban insurrection had it been organizationally led along a clear direction.
The April 6th event was a massive noise barrage on the eve of a farcical election where the top charismatic leader of the opposition was running for a legislative seat from jail. For the first time, during those years of dictatorship, millions of people in the metropolis made loud and clear their hatred and rejection of the Marcos regime. They did so on an occasion where they had a concrete choice over the dictatorship – the leadership of the popular Ninoy Aquino.
April 6th was thus perceived to be Strike One for people power, in Pilipino Lakas ng Bayan or LABAN. If you ever wondered when that word “Laban” first became truly popular, it was on April 6th, 1978.
Strike Two came on August 21-31, 1983, after which date the activist group ATOM or August Twenty-One Movement was named. Ninoy Aquino was murdered August 21st and the biggest funeral in recorded history took place ten days later, signaling the massive rejection of Marcos by the Filipino people a second time.
On this second “strike”, massive people’s self-mobilization again did not lead to insurrection. Marcos managed precariously to stay on in power by allowing the people to let off steam in various imaginative actions which came to be widely known as the “Parliament of the Streets” or POS.
The propaganda movement led by the POS considerably weakened the Marcos regime at all levels – economic, political and ideologico-cultural. One economic crisis after another was accompanied by as many political crises. However, the regime managed to hold on. Marcos defended himself with a clear understanding that there was a qualitative difference between an insurrectionary strike, which he had prevented at all costs, and all other “letting-off-steam” type of people’s actions, no matter how massive in character, which he could tolerate.
With the weakening of the regime after Strike Two, most analysts came to believe that the triumph of Strategy (A) or Protracted People’s War had become inevitable – within a hazy three to five years, perhaps. In any case, the analysts went, most people would end up following Strategy (A) or PPW because Strategy (B) or the Electoral Struggle had absolutely no chance of success. It was most patent that a dictator could never be toppled down by an election, at least not by a purely Electoral Strategy.
In the meantime, the PUI proponents persistently proclaimed that Strike Three was near at hand. The third crucial moment would come, according to their reading of history-in-the-making, with the taking place of another Event comparable to April 6th or August 21st. In their analysis, that Event would most probably be the National Elections scheduled for 1987. They were sure that a national election would mean Marcos’ having to use massive fraud and terrorism against a determined people’s rejection of his regime. The “Post”, as they called the Post-Election scenario, would mean massive protests, a double count of election results – the official government differing from the unofficial but more credible citizen’s count – followed by more protests which would lead to dual power (the old government and the new claimant) and finally, to a successful People’s Urban Insurrection.
The Four Objective Factors – By September-October 1985, the “Post” had become a hot topic among PUI proponents. With the growing success of the struggle in the international arena – among the foreign media, international agencies (banks and businesses) and foreign governments – the possibility of Marcos’ calling for “Snap Elections” had become more real. To strengthen his hand in dealing with the politico-economic crises that wouldn’t go away, Marcos was believed ready to seek a “fresh mandate”. Thus, preparations for elections among the adherents of Strategy (B), which had started much earlier, became more intense with all the resultant factionalism and divisiveness.
In early November 1985, Marcos finally called for a “Snap”. He exuded the confidence and arrogance of one who had all the powers and intent of not losing in an election. He was confident that it was well nigh impossible for the adherents of Strategy (B) to ever get united in one electoral ticket. And in his view, the numerous militant but predictable adherents of Strategy (A) would logically go for a response of boycott against positively advocating participation in the electoral struggle. As for the adherents of Strategy (C), in Marcos’ view, they were too few and too weak that he could destroy them anytime.
The PUI proponents, however, never wavered from their certitude that a national election would mean Strike Three – either a “home run” or a “strike out”. And they identified four objective factors essential to the realization of a successful people’s uprising: (1) the strength of the open-legal forces; (2) the strength of the urban guerilla organizations; (3) the capacity to neutralize and then win over significant portions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines; and (4) the existence of international support ensuring that the fait accompli of a successful uprising would not long remain isolated but gain the necessary diplomatic recognition.
The active interplay, intertwining and convergence of these four factors were crucial in the realization of the People’s Urban Insurrection against the Marcos dictatorship.
1.The Open-Legal Forces – After the 1978-1981 urban guerilla actions, which culminated in the Aquino (Ninoy) – Marcos transnational negotiations, a qualitative change took place in the Philippine dictatorial polity. A quasi-democratic thaw came about that permitted to a limited degree the development of the opposition mass media, mass movements, and political parties.
After the Aquino martyrdom in 1983, the atmosphere of daring became even more pronounced. The ripples of people power that started in the late 1960’s whose further development was arrested with the imposition of martial law in the early 1970’s, became like big waves in the post-1983 POS (parliament of the streets) gently threatening, after the forging of the Cory-Doy unity, to become a huge tidal wave that could sweep away the Marcos-Crony dictatorship from power. As the Cory-Doy campaign moved from province to province, city to bigger city, and town to smaller town, only those with the most dogmatic ideological hang-ups or the thickest of analytic blinders could fail to note that the largest mass movement in the nation’s history was now “a-borning.” Not to be part of that movement would be equivalent to deliberately resigning from a historic people’s process: in other words, boycotting such a movement would surely mean being thrown to the political sidelines by an intensely awakened populace. Thus, it came about that many adherents of the PPW strategy, by mis-reading the historical process which was under way before their very eyes, and by their virtual absence from the final battles against the dictatorship, isolated themselves from the majority populace, becoming in the end de facto allies of a regime that was trying to keep anti-Marcos voters home.
The Cory-Doy campaign which was national in geographic, sectoral, and ideological scope provided the needed matrix for the generation of “people power” – defined as “the self-awareness, self-organization, and self-mobilization of the majority populace against a well-focused target”, the Marcos regime. A bit disorganized and inefficient as political campaigns go, that campaign was, nonetheless, extremely effective as a thousand initiatives self-coordinated against a common well-focused target.
As the campaign came to the final days before the February 7th electoral exercise, many adherents of Strategy (B) became increasingly aware of the necessity for Strategy (C). The proponents and adherents of the latter strategy (People’s Urban Insurrection) were, from the very start, an essential part of the Cory-Doy campaign. They knew that the campaign was the necessary first chapter of the total people’s process. They also believed that a second chapter was inevitable – aimed at defending the people’s mandate and proclaiming the new legitimacy. Thus, they systematically went about briefing the foreign media on Chapter Two, or the “Post” scenario. And when, days after February 7th (Election Day), the foreign correspondents were still very much in town, the Marcos propagandists fell into panic. They asked, “Why are they still here? Is there something else planned by the opposition?” Indeed, there was, because by then, Strategies B and C – electoral and insurrectionary – had already merged.
2.The Urban Guerillas – It has almost become a truism to assert that for massive non-violence to succeed, there must exist somewhere in the political spectrum groups capable of inflicting some violence on the enemy. More accurately, while in the end, only massive people power (necessarily nonviolent) can effectively bring down the key targets of the national struggle, the growing potential for selective and incisive use of force must be present.
“The aim here,” according to an urban guerilla communiqué entitled The Tasks at Hand dated February 10th, 1986 and subsequently publicized abroad by CBS News, and the San Francisco Examiner, “is to carry out public justice now and convincingly show the people that they are not helpless nor is the Marcos government still in full control. Urban guerilla activities will ideally create an atmosphere of daring as well as act as vanguard for the more crucial massive actions of the people so that the latter are not dispersed or cut down like sitting ducks by an unscrupulous regime that stops at nothing to keep itself in power. The Cory-Doy leadership, while disassociating itself from urban guerilla activities, must not fall into the temptation of condemning them, for their aim is merely the shaking up of the regime and the softening up of the key targets which, in the end, only massive people power can effectively bring down”.
Early on, the communiqué stated: “The combination of the following elements is required for the attainment of the over-all aim [i.e. the installation of a Cory-Doy government in the soonest possible time]: an enhanced capacity for greater and still greater mass actions; a program of civil disobedience or non cooperation; a series of destabilizing urban guerilla actions; the formation of a government that can issue meaningful orders to the civilian-military bureaucracy of the old government; and, finally, a serious effort at gaining diplomatic recognition from the present allies of the Philippines.”
The premises for the tasks outlined in the communiqué were simply put: “The people’s mandate must be defended and the popular victory proclaimed as the new legitimacy, for the Marcos government has, at long last, been finally and definitely rejected by the Filipino people as an illegitimate government which they rejected in the last national election.”
The days immediately following the election, however, saw the predominance of cautious instincts that advocated a gradual build-up of a civil disobedience and boycott campaign possibly leading to a general strike. This was in contrast to immediately calling for greater and still greater mass actions and a series of militant destabilizing tactics toward a massing of people at Malacanang supported by urban guerilla forces that would lead the initial assault on the formidable palace guard.
The predominant gradualist approach turned out to be the wiser course. Marcos’ “operation slow count” at the COMELEC, all-out attack on the NAMFREL, and “operation quick count at the KBL-controlled Batasan were correctly answered by the gradualist tactic of ensuring the opposition’s enhanced capacity to concentrate people power at will – anytime, anywhere.
Thus, urban guerilla actions, so much needed as a potential destabilizing force against the regime, ironically turned out to be, in fact, unnecessary as an actualized force. For it became clear that such actions would only offer Marcos the excuse he needed for quick decisive repression risking a return to passivity, fear and vacillation among the rank and file of the broader opposition and thus, ultimately, diffusing the hitherto easily concentrated power of the people.
Every move had now to be evaluated against the strategic thrust: will it help or will it hamper the gathering together of people power?
3.Winning over the Military. That significant elements of the military had long been won over to the people’s cause by their own conscience and the pressure of growing people’s power was quite widely known. PUI proponents had considered this factor in the formulation of the total strategy. They had to – in as much as they were merely “reading” history. More accurately, they were merely taking note of the many diverse but inevitably converging lines and facts of history-in-the-making. Thus, they were confident that under conditions of Marcosist die-hards mounting an attack on the unarmed masses, the latter would be able to count on various centers of the reform movement in the armed forces to hamper the regime’s “mad dog” propensities. The PUI strategists’ projections anticipated such decisive actions to come from the reformists only during or after the insurrectionary strikes of the majority populace – not before or as a catalyst to the latter.
The slow development of the “Post,” however, made it necessary for the military reformist to move first, or else Marcos would have obtained the precious time he needed to ease the tensions and return the nation to “normalcy” – a situation considered undesirable by the opposition. For once, a business-as-usual attitude prevailed, no matter how long it took Marcos’ chances of victory increased. With time gained, he would successfully condition the majority populace to reluctant, powerless but, nonetheless, real acceptance of his government as the only de facto and therefore, de jure government around. The people would still perceive him as odious, repressive and oppressive; they would still look upon his regime as one that would eventually end; but, for now, they would learn to accept him as the omnipotent factor in the local political scene.
Luckily for the nation, the Enrile-Ramos revolt happened when it did. It became the much-needed element of surprise that put Marcos off-balance. But luckily, too, for the military rebels, their faith in people power saved them from almost sure annihilation and hastened the total victory of the people over the Marcos dictatorship. The people’s readiness to die saved so many armed rebels from death. And the armed rebels’ readiness to fight to the death enabled the strategic force of massive nonviolence to dismantle the institutionalized terrorism of the Marcos regime. The people’s urban insurrection against tyranny – truly the people’s and not merely that of an elite party or force – achieved the victory of democracy over dictatorship.
4 International Solidarity – Throughout the long years of the Marcos rule, there was no lack of militant exiles abroad – in the U.S. and Canada, Western Europe and elsewhere who, at first, functioned as a propaganda movement for the silenced majority at home. Later, quite a few of them became “guilty” of more than just talking but also actively giving logistical and other kinds of support for the militant struggle in the home front.
True enough, the latter kind of exiles were quite few but, still, significant enough to move Marcos to get Reaganism to persecute and prosecute them with extended FBI, CIA, and Grand Jury investigations.
While it can be argued that the struggle to cut off all aid to Marcosism was more successful in the effort than the final results, it cannot be argued that the struggle to expose before the world the evils of the Marcos regime was not a hundred percent success – because it was, with all the destabilizing consequences for the transnationally propped-up dictatorship at home.
In the last stages of the struggle, however, the PUI proponents looked to international solidarity work for something even more significant: prepare friendly and guilt-ridden governments to recognize a fait accompli in the Philippines, the fait accompli of a popular government that would be installed by a people’s uprising following a clearly won election.
One of the chief lessons drawn out by Apolinario Mabini in La Revolucion Filipina was the importance of Manila to the national struggle. Whoever won Manila as the source of legitimation and solid base of operations had already won the whole country. A government in Manila could easily be perceived as the national government. But in the case of prolonged struggle between two governments, which would the foreign governments recognize?
Emilio Aguinaldo failed, by his vacillation, both to win Manila and to get international recognition for the First Philippine Republic. The consequence was national disaster.
Camp Aguinaldo, however, in 1986, displayed the combination of people power and rebellious military might, with more than a little help from activist exile organizations and the foreign media that continuously brought this unique revolutionary drama to the living rooms of hundreds of millions around the world, and ensured that the new Philippines would not be isolated, but warmly accepted as a new model of political change in the community of nations.
What the Uprising Achieved
People power, defined as the self-awakening and self-mobilizing of the majority populace against a well-focused target, hit the “home run” on Strike Three, February 1986. Ninoy’s faith in the Filipino was vindicated: The Filipino was really “worth dying for”.
While Ninoy was clearly the inspired and inspiring figure of the people’s process from inception to finish, it was the grace – filled ability of Cory Aquino to “continue the fight of Ninoy” – her ability to call on the people to stand up with the dignity that she incarnated against the worst machinations of tyranny – her ability to gently handle and firmly resolve the myriad contradictions among her numerous followers – in short, her wisdom and sincerity that, in the end, crushed the wiliness and utter fraudulence of Mr. Marcos.
The principal contradiction in Philippine society which the February insurrection resolved was simply that between the Marcosian dictatorial rule and the people’s democratic aspirations: dictatorship vs. democracy, tyranny vs. freedom.
Therefore, they will be disappointed who expected an automatic resolution of the numerous other contradictions existing in Philippine society today [1986]. The people’s uprising merely achieved for the nation the democratic space so badly needed by every individual and social sector to struggle for their various politico-economic views and interests in relative peace – minus arbitrary detentions, the “salvagings”, the tortures, the danger of exile, and – generally – minus the atmosphere of fear.
The February Uprising achieved neither an independently developed capitalism nor an incipient socialism, neither the complete abolition of feudalism nor the complete banishment of imperialism. But something great and something truly historic was attained: the Filipino people through massive nonviolent actions crushed a modern homegrown and foreign-supported dictatorship. And that, indeed, from any angle or consideration, is no mean achievement.
After the Uprising, therefore, we’re back (or forward) to liberal democracy. Within this context, it is hoped, the struggle for independence and social justice can be hastened. After the political triumph of people power comes either the social revolution or regression into another form of plutocracy.
Therefore, the No. 1 item in the democratic agenda is the institutionalization of people power through the massive build-up of autonomous people’s organization – both at the movement level and in the area of grassroots political party building. A people-oriented mass media can continue to be strengthened only alongside the existence of stronger people’s organizations.
It will certainly help the democratic cause a lot if, from the start, the new government is willing and able to co-opt into its ranks wise and dedicated leaders who have already been tested through the years in their sacrifices for the people’s causes – leaders whose hearts and minds carry a corrective bias in favor of the majority who are poor. It will also help tremendously if the new constitution were to give us not only a bill of human rights but, above all, a new concept of property that is explicitly democratic in substance and intent and not only implicitly oligarchic by again silently following the old absolutist and exclusivist Roman Law concept which has ruled our property structures for more than 400 years now.
Without a new concept of property and human rights guarantees (the latter being a sure bill anyway), a new generation of Filipinos may yet be the first to reject the new Philippine model of people power that was predominantly nonviolent in style. When not attended to for long, the property question always finds a way of resolving itself through violence.
Someone has time and again remarked that Marcos was not the devil incarnate, as many people were, justifiably, often tempted to believe. Rather, Marcos was the Scourge of God on a people that misused their freedom, and allowed an ideology of greed to prevail across the land. But if Marcos was God’s Scourge, then perhaps, Cory Aquino is God’s gift to a repentant nation that finally stood up as a freedom-loving people against tyranny. In any case, it would be unjust to Cory if, after a recently concluded people’s insurrection, we now lazily transmute people power into some kind of people’s mendicancy by casting her into a deus ex machina – a messianic president whom we expect, vendo-machine-like, to accurately know and solve all the problems of society without efforts on our part to build strong social organizations, strong people’s movements, and vibrant “people power” communities.
The true Lakas ng Bayan must go on. The spirit of February ’86 must continue. After our common triumph over tyranny, we may, as a people, now peacefully find solutions to the more urgent but age-old problems of our land: the problems of dependence, underdevelopment, poverty, and injustice.
(Ka Charlie at the Ateneo de Manila University Gym April 6th 1986. First Co-Published by: Kapulungan ng mga Sandigan ng Pilipinas and Pilipinas International Foundation, Inc.(New York) and Action Line Foundation (Manila) – 1986.)
–FINIS-
Charles Avila -The Gardener
The Gardener’s Tales