Speaking at the ceremony commemorating the 24th anniversary of the People Power Revolution, our hardworking and prayerful President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, bemoaned the “partisanship” that the notion of “people power” has acquired through the years, and arrogated unto herself the authority to define it: “It is not about whose politics one supports. It’s about the heroism of the many who held strongly to their faith in the Filipino and who have sought a new Philippines that stands proudly beside any free nation in the world.” She further claimed that one of the goals that she had set for her administration was to heal the wounds that the revolution had opened, a goal at which she had partially succeeded.
This is the same tune Macapagal-Arroyo has been singing almost all throughout her scandal-plagued and controversy-ridden regime—a regime made possible by the spirit of the same revolution she has since disgraced—and yet constant repetition has not robbed it of its deadly and deadening allure. In many respects, it is a siren song, rendering the listener mad with desire—the desire, in this instance, for the cessation of conflicts, deployed in the interminable themes of “moving on” or “moving forward”. The cessation of conflicts, however, is not the same as their resolution: the latter requires attending to the tensions and contradictions with which the arduous process of change is engendered, while the former forecloses the possibilities for just such a process, instead promoting paralysis, petrification, and putrefaction. To choose the former path is to be non-partisan, which is to say, finally, non-human.
If every nation is to be understood, in Benedict Anderson’s famous phrase, as an “imagined community”, then memory can only play a central role in the formation of any given nation, for imagination draws its energy not only from lived experience but also from the wellsprings of memory. A relatively wide, shared understanding of the past and what it means is necessary in order to establish bonds of affection, to generate duties and responsibilities, to construct and reinforce a sense of self.
The place of memory, however, is not upon a candlelit pedestal and behind glass, as though it were a santo in a viriña, protected from the ebb and flow of history, but within the minds and hearts of human beings who exist in and encounter a world that is ever in flux, a world that is contested at all times and in all places. Therefore, the act of remembering is always already political. For a nation, memory is both an adhesive and a solvent, prone to uses that are, on the one hand, ancillary, adventitious, and indifferent, and on the other, vital, vigorous, and transformational. Consider: what is the point of the “greatness” of Filipinos that Macapagal-Arroyo extols when such greatness is confined to an elegiac enclave, never to be thrust into the light of the present, and restored to life and warmth?
The difficult realities with which our lives are fraught and wrought oblige us to take on the burdens of intervention—of doing something about the world. We cannot disavow accountability or remain above the fray: each of us must decide where his or her values lie, and be ready to take up and defend the position that resonates with those values. To do otherwise—in the name, perhaps, of that oft-abused term , “public interest”—is to betray a mindset that sees the world as natural, as neutral—and thus, ultimately, amoral. In other words, each of us must be partisan: as human beings, as agents of history, as catalysts of change, as people with the power of revolution.
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Tumbok mo Jay.
We must all be invested in our future, in making our imperfect institutions work. As I’ve posited elsewhere, the gem that is People Power has, through the years, been devalued and misappropriated.
It’s true ‘owners’, Filipino patriots of all socio-economic stations must not only remember EDSA.
We must LIVE it.
The quote about ‘imagined communities’ explains why we cannot heed the call to drop everything and move forward, instead of getting stuck in this quagmire of negativity that the Villar and Gibo camp always paint the Noynoy camp. We cannot move on unless we agree to be a community of shared memories. A good post, Mr. J.
I think memories are modestly instructional if one considers the rationality of the experiences, the lessons learned. To hang onto some emotive good vibe does absolutely nothing to help people. The past is past. It is over. It is done with. Get some new achievements under the old expanding belt line and jig up some new good feelings.
Joe
And is the People Power Revolution nothing more than an “emotive good vibe” for you?
Jay,
Let me flip the question. Where is the constructive action that today derives from the Revolution? If it is being translated into deeds that help Filipinos today, it is a good Power. I don’t see campaign halos as derivative of action aimed at betting the lives of ordinary Filipinos. I don’t know what the “platform” of said Revolution is, for today.
Joe
What did the People Power Revolution achieve? It toppled a tyrannical regime and restored democracy. Filipinos reclaimed the right to choose how to live in the world. That alone is a significant accomplishment.
Did the revolution afford Filipinos a space of total and absolute freedom? No. Democracy also entails responsibility: the agent must contend with structure. Filipinos must engage with, work through, and transform the complex of social relations that they constitute, and with which they are constituted.
Jay,
I’m not arguing with what WAS accomplished. I have no idea what it means for today. So I guess there is no platform, just this nebulous sense that this was good, was bold. But no one is doing anything other than saying, well, all that we are is because of the Revolution, so let’s celebrate.
I still say getting work done is more important than celebrating, and feeling good can be done with a glass of beer.
Joe
I would tend to agree with you, Joe. The People Power Revolution, the so-called Edsa I & II, are reactive processes brought about after years of passiveness and disparity. It happened only when the confluence of Filipinos, the elite, the middle class, the masses, the church and the military all came together to say enough is enough. There is a better way by being pro-active, by claiming your lot in society and voting for the right representation. When we vote for wrong representation, we get what we voted for, a self inflicted dose of corruption. When we are cheated for wrong representation, we the people, are being manipulated by the powerful few. In order to own your lot, you have to fight for it pro-actively lest you be devoured by vested interests.
And yet this better way you advocate would have been unthinkable without the People Power Revolution happening in the first place. The challenge that arose in the wake of EDSA is precisely that: to be pro-active, to be responsible for democracy.
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Proactiveness is a mind set and a culture. The Philippines has been locked and historically embedded with the attitude of passiveness (bahala na), personal indebtness (utang na loob), nepotism (kamag anak kasi), influence of Catholic Church (sabi ni father, eh) and other traditional indifferences. This is why we as a people are slow to react as opposed to a more proactive stance and mindset to nip it right in the bud, right away. Once the people, the very stakeholders of the country, realize the worth of this lot through actions, voice and vote, it can reponsibly make an immediate impact before it becomes worst and resort once again to the parliament of the streets.
Joe,
Things as they are today would have been unthinkable and unimaginable without EDSA. That Filipinos are now responsible for themselves is, to my mind, beneficial unto itself. That Filipinos enjoy freedom of expression—which includes the freedom to complain, the freedom to critique, and the freedom to vote for whoever they wish—is another continuing benefit.
Is the situation perfect? Hardly. But then we must also calibrate our expectations. To conceive of the People Power Revolution as an event that “should” have brought about changes of epic proportions, as though the world were created anew, is, to my mind, a mistake—an overinvestment of belief in the event.
Jay,
Yes, good points. Those freedoms are what I would term “social infrastructure”, extraordinarily valuable. So I see your point now. And mine would be to take the next step in building that infrastructure. I would suggest two: increase the budget of Judiciary so the Philippines can be a real nation of laws, and pass a “Fair Employment Law” that bans nepotistic hiring, which has all the ills that racism did in the US, barring capable people from aspiring and being productive.
Those are two more social infrastructure achievements that are worth fighting for.
Joe
people will no longer learn from this. it’s too wowowish and too emotional for the readers. It has no sense of humor , sense of purpose or contains a solution to the many problems. Another yellowish BS… poor pinoys, stuck with a bad memory. god bless you all people!!!
History is not obliged to indulge your “wowowish” demands.
Lila Shahani’s comment is worth repeating:
“Generally, it’s brats who’ve never had to fight for anything significant (and I don’t mean a job or a boyfriend here) in their lives who tend to make such insensitive and shallow statements.”
Suddenly it’s “you all people”? Wowowish!
Discourse on something as important as the state of the nation can be discussed on many different levels. Perhaps you should wait until this is reduced into a series of Erap-style electioneering sound bites so you can get Jay was writing about.
you don’t even recognise your true enemies and worst, you have no weapons. this blog is blind. Make another one!!!
Oh God not another one…
The EDSA revolution is perpetuated by people who had deluded us.
In order for them to stay in power. I never believe in the EDSA
revolution. It is a delusion and a Stolen Dream of most filipinos.
“It is well documented that Villar’s real estate empire ran into some serious financial problems when his overexposure to the real estate market and the Asian Financial Crisis made him unable to pay debts he took out to expand his real estate business in the early 1990s. After the Asian Crisis hit, Capitol Bank, owned by Villar and heavily exposed to his real estate investments was essentially ran to the ground and needed to be bailed out. In 2005, Villar tried to solve his debt problems by hiring a group of investment banks to advise him on how he can consolidate all his assets into one company (Vista Land). With the local and foreign investment bankers, Villar came up with a growth story for investors: “Invest in my company because we need it to fund all these wonderful project!” However, what was downplayed during the IPO roadshow was that instead of financing growth, resources from the offering would be used to finance his debt. To appease creditors, Villar even had his investment bankers pitch some form of a debt-to-equity conversion that raised skeptical eyebrows of many. In 2007, the IPO of Vista Land did not do as well as planned, in part because many investors and brokers were the same people who were burned by Villar’s inability to pay back his loans.”
- Winnie Monsod in her essay about why she is voting AbNoy
This is closely the same conceptualization as the hacienda Luisita. Farmers were sworn to be rewarded through a dividend pay-out ( like a common or preferred stockholder). It did not raise many eyebrows rather it killed many farmers who in our knowledge already had an introductory contribution of hard labor. Vista land gathered investors to invest their money for growth ( leveraging) whereas Hacienda Luisita utilizes farmer’s handwork as the investors and yet no allocation of the farmers tiresome capital was paid.
regardless of the size of the companies, both carry on to perpetrate conspiracy to defraud investors and the farmers separately.
However if Vista land were able to pay dividends or paid investors a positive return then It can be considered legal.
Nash, can you please stop calling Sen. Noy Abnoy? Medyo nakka-irita na eh. Salamat.
LOLOLOLOL
mark,
pls. don’t mind nash saying that. i have a feeling he’s not voting for villar therefore he has no other choice but…
mark,
forgive the immature people here. Some just want to senselessly provoke people for their own sick enjoyment.
While it is true that no group can claim ownership of EDSA I, it is wrong to say that it was non-partisan.
The fact is it’s immediate aim was to oust Marcos. It later became apparent that the logical conclusion would be the installation of his electoral foe, Mrs Aquino. So from that angle it was a partisan act.
The more broader protest that it represented however was a challenge to the arbitrary use by Marcos of the coercive powers of the state to abuse and trample on the rights, both political and economic, of its citizens.
For more than a decade he had succeeded in dividing and conquering. Only then did the Nation decide that he had finally breached the standard of the legitimate use of authority. That same question has hung over the current administration. Wary of the forces that tried to convince the polity that its chief executive had breached the same standard, the president had to find a way to legitimize once again her use and hold on that power.
Hear, hear…
I don’t think anybody claims EDSA 1 was non-partisan. A broad coalition of people obviously chose Cory over Marcos.
Now, is the choice between forces of the administration and the opposition embodied by the Liberal Party?
Or, as Paul Hutchcroft claims in “Booty Capitalism”, is the coming elections yet another ‘revolution’ (i.e. taking turns) among our oligarchs?
Also, David Kang in Crony Capitalism” makes a similar argument.
Wasn’t the whole point of Mrs Arroyo’s speech an argument for remembering EDSA I as a non-partisan affair, sparks?
The point you are making may be a valid one, but it is irrelevant I think to the discussion at hand.
oh, my bad. gma is arguing that *forehead slap* i thought you meant the writer and commenters.
I think the overthrowing of a US-backed dictatorship is a already an accomplishment by itself. Although this was out-maneuvered by imposition of an odious debt by the World Bank allowed by Cory which I hope can still be reversed.
I think the memory of EDSA becomes partisan when it becomes a material for a campaign, in which it divides the supporters of party using it from those who are also qualified to public office without any contribution to it. When someone uses is as a vanity material, some people would develop a negative view of EDSA as a mere resume for a candidate instead of its original glory because of the people.
The more we commemorate and indulge in this EDSA delusion. The more we
cannot unite ourselves. EDSA was made by the U.S. State Department.
The Aquino family is perpetuating this delusion. Because it serves them
well politically. We must all unite. Whatever our political color,
because we are facing serious problems in our country. We have a job to do. Instead of indulging in destructive politics.