Sunday, May 20, 2001
Unrest in the ERUPTIONS OF VIOLENCE surrounding the mid-term and local elections in the Philippines last week have taken the lives of 17 candidates, five policemen, three soldiers and at least 77 civilians across the nation. Two weeks ago, a rampaging mob stormed the presidential palace, Malacanang, protesting the arrest of former President Joseph Estrada who has been charged with corruption.
Philippines was no
‘People Power 3’
Violent protests were incited
by inflamed rhetoric, not
genuine 'street power'By Belinda A. Aquino
Special to the Star-BulletinAll of this has raised troubling questions, especially among Filipinos themselves: Have Filipinos become intoxicated with street power, better known as "People Power?" Are we seeing the growth of Peronism, a Philippine style of the emotional politics of the Argentine leader, Juan Domingo Peron, from 1946 to 1955.
The term "People Power" is revered by Filipinos. It started in street demonstrations in 1983, following the assassination of Benigno Aquino, the arch rival of then-President Ferdinand Marcos, upon Aquino's return from abroad. The "Parliament of the Streets" became the "People Power" that toppled the 14-year dictatorship of Marcos in 1986. Aquino's widow, Corazon, became the nation's new leader.
This original "People Power" was replicated 15 years later to topple Estrada, popularly known as "Erap," after a botched impeachment trial in the Senate freed him from charges of plunder and fraud. After a four-day standoff with hundreds of thousands in "People Power 2" in January, Estrada left Malacanang.
In both cases, massing in the streets was the ultimate resort after Marcos and Estrada refused to resign and every constitutional means to remove them had failed. Marcos had called sham elections to perpetuate himself in power. When he tried to cheat his way out in the 1987 "snap elections," relentless demonstrations in the streets day after day ended with his exile to Hawaii.
In both cases, Filipinos from all classes heeded the call of Jaime Cardinal Sin, the Roman Catholic prelate, and civic leaders to support the mass movement to end the Marcos and Estrada regimes. There was no rioting, looting, burning, shooting or random violence. Both revolutions took on a religious tone as priests, nuns, students and community leaders recited rosaries, carried icons of the Virgin Mary, and sang hymns.
In sharp contrast was "People Power 3," an attempt to retore the deposed "Erap" to office. Flinging rocks, bottles, lead pipes and other homemade weapons, the Estrada loyalists, coming mostly from the poor in Manila's squatter colonies, battled with palace guards and police, killing or wounding several. Their ringleaders included national politicians such as Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile and Miriam Defensor Santiago, both presidential wannabes who had lost in previous elections.
It is important to distinguish the May 1 street protest from the two previous "People Power" upheavals. The appropriation of "People Power" by Estrada's supporters was a malevolent attempt to convey the impression that they were carrying out a genuine people's revolt against a usurper, in this case President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. But this crowd had a frenzied quality, with enraged mobsters charging the beleaguered police, and cabal plotters inciting the crowd to violence.
Enrile exhorted the mob, "Let us encircle Malacanang to bring its residents to their senses." Santiago agitated the crowd with her lusub (charge) command. She threatened to shoot anyone who would arrest her.
The most disturbing aspect were reports that many protesters were paid up to 1,000 pesos ($20) a day to lay siege to Malacanang. They were rounded up from impoverished squatter communities by mayors sympathetic to Estrada. A thousand pesos can feed a poor family for a week. It is no different from the routine vote-buying during election campaigns.
It is also true that many Estrada followers took to the streets on their own volition. The deposed president had been a movie idol whose roles portraying him as the good guy winning over the bad guy had endeared him to the masa (masses). He embodied their resentments against the rich and their aspirations for a better life. They voted for him overwhelmingly in the 1998 presidential elections, despite his reputation as a college drop-out, a womanizer, an alcoholic and a gambler.
What does it all mean? Street politics has long been a part of Philippine society for many reasons. With nearly 400 years of colonial history under Spain and then the United States, and a brief occupation by Japan, Filipinos have internalized a culture of resistance. It is the only way to survive. But to lump together all actions in the streets and call them "mobocracies," or "failures of democracy," or "addictions to street politics," is to miss the point.
The grain must be distinguished from the chaff and the genuine from the fake. For Filipinos, the "People Power" movements that succeeded in removing Marcos and Estrada were energizing, elevating, empowering. Filipinos condemn the parodies of "People Power" like the May Day putsch at the gates of Malacanang. The persistence of bloody elections like the one this month is even more deplorable. We condemn the reprehensible attempts of Estrada and his supporters to inflame the poor, bribing them and exploiting their poverty to commit violence that work against their own interests.
Moreover, the elite and the wealthy, the church and the Makati business circles, all non-violent participants in "People Power 1 and 2," must reform as well. They must get away from the facile paradigms of trickle-down economics and throwing crumbs to the poor. President Arroyo should forget globalization for a while and start listening hard to the voices in the streets.
Otherwise, a corrupt but charismatic scoundrel like Estrada will continue to capture the loyalties of the vast underclass even if his populism is bankrupt. Similarly, a corrupt counter-elite the likes of Enrile, Santiago and Maceda, who may not be charismatic but are cunning in another sense, will be able to create chaos in the violence, confusion and destruction of Philippine politics.
Belinda A. Aquino, who is not related to former
President Corazon Aquino, is professor and director of the Center for
Philippine Studies at the University of Hawaii-Manoa.