Is another People Power in the making?
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 and organization advocates, the three strategies were:
- (A) 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 twenty-nine years ago (Year 1986) people power toppled down the dictatorial regime.
EDSA PEOPLE POWER (From http://philnews.ph)
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. The earlier two “strikes” that had the power of the people but did not become insurrectionary in character were: firstly, that of April 6th 1978 – or the massive noise barrage on the eve of a farcical election, and secondly – that of August 21-31, 1983, or the massive protests against the Ninoy Aquino assassination.
For some time now some of the same moral leaders who helped into being the regime-change movements of 1986 (against Marcos) and 2001 (against Estrada) are again calling on a ruling President to step down. Their assemblies and information campaigns on the illegitimacy and illegal acts of the PNoy Aquino regime have seemingly gained so much traction as to get the Secretary of the Department of Justice to fulminate on a quiet Sunday morning (Feb.24) against this would-be “National Transformation Council,” followed up by more threats the Monday after (Feb.25).
De Lima (from: http://dzmm.abs-cbnnews.com)
Justice Secretary Leila Delima said in part, “By calling for people power and military support to force the president’s ‘resignation’ in order to pave the way for a junta, the NTC and its mushrooming allied alphabet soup organizations of discredited government officials consisting of charged plunderers, grafters, and tax evaders, or of those under investigation for such crimes, may have just crossed the line of legitimate dissent.”
An immediate retort came from Lipa Archbishop Ramon C. Arguelles: “People who do illegal things should be prosecuted. The National Transformation Council has not done anything illegal. The PDAP and DAP and bribery and corruption promoters are the ones who should be prosecuted.” The activist Archbishop together with his many colleagues in the Catholic, Protestant and Islamic faiths expressly dared the top honcho of the Justice Department to go ahead – bring the charges on. However, too many legal luminaries of the land had already laughed out of town the inane posturing of the overworked cabinet Secretary.
Arguelles (from: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net)
Arguelles and his group of moral leaders had long held that the elections of 2010 and 2013 were fatally compromised by the Smartmatic automation schemes. The ensuing governments were therefore merely de facto but not necessarily de jure (legitimate) governments. In many declarations following one regional assembly after another, this council of moral leaders had said that “President Benigno Simeon Aquino III has lost the moral right to lead the nation, and has become a danger to the Philippine democratic and republican state and to the peace, freedom, security and moral and spiritual well-being of the Filipino people.”
Time and again they declared at Lipa, Cebu, Angeles, Butuan, Davao, General Santos, Cebu and Lipa again, both a second time, that they had lost all trust and confidence in President Benigno Simeon Aquino III, calling upon him to “immediately relinquish his position.” Early on they considered the Smartmatic elections of 2010 and 2013 as indubitably fraudulent and illegal. “The fruit of the poisoned tree” doctrine in law would therefore consider the results of those two elections to be fraudulent and illegal.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com)
It is therefore incumbent upon a group like the NTC to start restoring “our damaged political institutions to their original status before we begin to consider electing a new government under normal political conditions.”
To be clear, then: the NTC will form a provisional or transition government first before encouraging the people to establish a regular government.
The NTC strongly opposes all efforts towards either a coup d’état or mere succession by any other Smartmatic-made official like the incumbent vice-president.
“The role of the council will not be to succeed President Aquino, but solely to prevent the total destruction of our political system, and to rebuild and nourish its institutions back to health so that all those interested could join the political competition later, without the dice being loaded in anyone’s favor.
“Like a crew whose task is to put everything in order before a commercial carrier {which had earlier developed some problems in midair) is cleared again for take-off, the council’s duty will be only to repair the battered tripartite system [legislative-executive-judicial] and to make sure that the people are once again able to freely and intelligently elect their own leaders.”
The gardener has noticed that the Transformation Council idea is catching on like wild fire. After Mamasapano so many groups and prominent people have joined in the demand for the President to step down. There are so many initiatives now unabashedly imitating and adopting the NTC idea.
First there was Super-Typhoon Yolanda – more than a year ago. The heart of the Filipino was ripped apart when it was so painfully hit by what people of Eastern Visayas rightly or wrongly perceived to be PNoy’s lack of humanity and governance savvy – a leader bereft of heart and brains. He just could not deal with the truth of the situation. For the first 96 hours his minions could only brag about big moneys being made available for relief and rehabilitation when what was so badly needed was systematic rescue operations. Had this been attended to, hundreds if not thousands could still have been saved.
At this gut level where there are “reasons” that the mind cannot understand, the Filipino of Region 8 does not dislike PNoy; the Filipino of Region 8 hates him. Period. But we are talking here of an impact probably confined to the Eastern Visayas Region.
Mamasapano is different from Yolanda; its impact is not regional but national. Mamasapano is similar to Yolanda; it bypasses the cerebral highways, rushing straight to the heart. Did PNoy survive Yolanda? And can he survive Mamasapano?
More and more analysts see what many Malacanang “insiders” clearly see – his inability to deal with the truth of an unpleasant situation. This time it is at the level of the broad masses of people where daily the numbers increase of those who can no longer believe him – people who no longer like him and are beginning to really get mad at him.
Malacanang has more than a hint that this indeed is the case, evidenced by the number of uniformed armed men who kept people away from the Edsa Shrine on this 29th year of the Edsa Uprising. FINIS