People Power @ 40: Reflecting on EDSA I and II, historical amnesia, and the Marcos return

A critical look at the four-decade journey from the 1986 People Power Revolution to the present day, questioning what truly changed in the Philippine political landscape. 

Forty years ago, the Filipinos told a dictatorship, “Sobra na! Tama na! Palitan na!” and, when a snap presidential election failed to remove the president from office, they took action, taking over a failed military coup and transforming it into a revolution—which came to be known as a “People Power” revolution—that overthrew President Ferdinand Marcos and sent him fleeing to the United States, where he would die an exile’s death.

That was forty years ago. We wanted things to change. And for a short time, it did. 

The restoration of democracy vs. the change of systems

Cory Aquino’s administration announced a return to democracy. But historians labeled it more as a “restoration of democracy.” The rights that were suppressed during the dictatorship were indeed restored—freedom of the press from a muzzled media, freedom of expression from a silenced voice, and political freedom in a democratic structure from a one-man rule. 

Things moved fast to change the country during the years after EDSA. A new constitution was written. A local government code decentralized the administration. An elected House of Representatives and Senate became a symbol of a democracy that brought to mind the American traditions from our colonial past.

We were proud of those early years. People power showcased to the world that change can peacefully happen.

But what the new government didn’t see was that bringing back the old pre-martial law structure would not change many of the features of the dictatorship. 

A legacy of historical amnesia

Cases of violation of human rights still happened in spite of the fact that a constitutionally created, government-appointed commission was set up. Another commission that was created to recover the Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth had moderate success. (Now that office has lain dormant for years now but not abolished in spite of the fact that a Marcos became president while a sibling and political allies sit as lawmakers.)

Government corruption still milked money from government projects. The military that was politicized during Marcos’ time thought themselves to be an influential factor in changing society and staged a series of failed coups. The economy began to falter and fall—one of the main factors was the hours-long power outages that ruined a lot of businesses.

And it just took a decade and a new administration under Cory ally Gen. Fidel Ramos for us to wake up to a day when the very people who fled that February night from Malacañang were back in the country. Not only that, the Filipinos soon elected them back to power.

It took less than ten years after EDSA before historical amnesia became a social disease to a people who once stood on a national highway and told a strongman that they had enough.

People power reduced the elections for our country’s leaders into a personality contest.  Filipinos believed that movie actors, who can easily eradicate crime and government corruption by shooting criminals with an endless supply of bullets in the movies, can do the same thing in real life. “Para sa bayan” became a password to win an election. Then when politicians were in power, they conveniently forgot the “bayan” in their promises.

EDSA II and the cycle of impunity

Twenty years after EDSA, a new generation of Filipinos enjoyed the modern technologies of the new century. The Internet, cellphones (later smartphones), new computer designs, and cable TV became the signs of the times. Politics rode high on the benefits of these new things that were later used and abused. 

Twenty years after EDSA, I saw the coming of an EDSA II when people spoke out again, this time against presidential corruption in the Estrada Administration. Movie star and later politician Erap Estrada resigned from office and was replaced by his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. But unlike the Marcoses, there was no exile for the now-former president—he merely was sent home like an errant schoolboy who did wrong and was found out before he was sentenced for corruption in court, after which he was arrested and imprisoned in his resthouse in what seemed like a month-long vacation before he was released after being granted executive clemency.  Then he ran for city mayor of Manila and won—two times.

The “fiction of democracy”

2016. The third decade after EDSA. The 30-year commemoration coincided with a presidential election. The VERA Files called it a “fiction of democracy.” People Power continued to be forgotten, and, in fact, questioned if it was worth celebrating anymore.  

Then, as if mocking EDSA’s returned democracy, the duly elected president went on a six-year killing spree, believing it was the only solution against the country’s drug problem.  Ironically, ten years after he began his term, on the 40th commemoration of the People Power Revolution, Duterte now sits on the dock before an international court, on trial for crimes against humanity.

How easily do the Filipinos forget their history? But the truth is lessons on how to teach a history of People Power were never made. (I once had a student who told me that until he watched a video of the 1983 Ninoy Aquino assassination, he thought that Ninoy was shot by a sniper from afar!)

We cannot deny the evils that happened during the dictatorship, but what would you say to a new generation of students who are aware and asked you how come those tortures, imprisonments, and corruption that martial law and dictatorship brought are still happening in their generation? Why are those human rights violations and crimes happening beyond the dictatorship years? What did People Power change?

The fourth decade: Historical distortion in the digital age

Then as we approached the forty-year commemoration, what could we see beyond the four decades? The new politics drew a dividing line between parties, now called it (derogatorily) a “yellow” thing, and reduced it to a personality-based event—Ninoy and Cory. Or a “pink” party with former vice-president and now Naga City mayor Leni Robredo, who still wins hands down as an elected public official.

And a disease called historical distortion filled the websites that users watched and learned from without critical thinking.  

The irony of 2022

But we cannot dismiss the irony that in 2022, exactly fifty years after martial law was declared and created a dictatorship under the Marcos Administration, the Filipino people elected the son, his junior Bongbong, to become the President of the Philippines.

Except for the return to democracy, it seemed nothing changed forty years after EDSA.

 

 

How easily do the Filipinos forget their history? But the truth is lessons on how to teach a history of People Power were never made.

 

 

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