People Power Fatigue?
The Arroyo government and its allies
say that the Filipino people are tired of people power. Does this mean that the
Filipino people are tired of condemning massive electoral fraud, putting a stop
to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, resisting repression,
fighting corruption, struggling against hunger and poverty? That is wishful
thinking on the part of the Arroyo government and it goes against the tide of
history.
BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
ANALYSIS
Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 4, February 24- March 1, 2008
Twenty two years ago, the Filipino people, in a collective expression of
disgust, gathered at EDSA to protest against a family’s greed and their disdain
for the people’s rights. This greedy family had dipped their hands into
almost all government contracts and denied the people their most basic
rights. In three days, the resoluteness of the Filipino people enabled
them to succeed in ousting one of the most brutal regimes in the country’s
history the Marcos fascist dictatorship.
Fourteen years after, the Filipino people gathered at EDSA once again to
show their anger at the brazenness by which corruption is being
committed, and how the president’s allies in Senate then, especially the troika
of Juan Ponce Enrile, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and Tessie Aquino-Oreta, were
using their numbers to suppress the evidence and prevent the people from
knowing the truth. In a matter of days, the Filipino people were able to
remove from Malacañang one of the most popularly-elected president in the
country’s history Joseph Estrada.
Now, we have a president; who was never popularly-elected (if elected at
all); whose administration made a mark internationally for the impunity in the
commission of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances targeting
activists; and is known to be one of the most dangerous places for journalists.
We have an administration with a propensity to curtail civil liberties at any
opportunity and by any means; and which bends the laws and legal processes to
run after its critics. To show its disdain for people power, it has made the
EDSA shrine and Mendiola, two historical places known as sites for the people’s
collective action, as off-limits to rallies. Worse, it declared a state of
national emergency on the 20th anniversary of People Power 1. For aside from
the Arroyo family, one of the leading figures in this administration is also
one of the chief enforcers of Martial Law and an operative during one of the
most brutal periods in Vietnam when killings of Vietnamese suspected of
supporting the revolution were rampant, Eduardo
Ermita.
We currently have a government that was adjudged as the most corrupt
administration in the country’s history because of the long list of corruption
scandals plaguing not only the whole administration but most especially the
presidential family. We have a president who has escaped impeachment three
times by bribing representatives and local officials with pork barrel funds and
cash flowing as if poverty is not a prevalent problem in this country.
We have an administration that has corrupted every existing institution of
democracy and process of governance to be able to keep itself in
power.
But the Arroyo administration says that the Filipino people should no longer
act so as not to reverse the gains of the economic growth, which it claims to
be the highest in three decades; or so they claim, despite the worse,
longest-running unemployment and underemployment figures in the country’s
history, the free-falling incomes of middle and lower income families, and the
widespread hunger and poverty.
The Arroyo government said that if the people have evidences to prove that
the presidential family is involved in corruption they should go to
court. This, despite the clear and credible testimony of a former
government official Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada – who was kidnapped to prevent him
from testifying – that a grossly disadvantageous contract, which was overpriced
to the tune of $130 million, was being imposed on the Filipino people, with the
participation of Jose Miguel Arroyo, the president’s husband, and the approval
of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo herself. But they never did give the more than a
thousand activists who were extrajudicially killed and forcibly disappeared their
day in court. They never even accorded Reps. Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran,
Liza Masa, Joel Virador,
The Arroyo administration warns against “unconstitutional” means of
addressing the country’s problems. But this administration’s repressive acts
and issuances have been adjudged as unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court.
The Arroyo government and its allies say that the Filipino people are tired
of people power. Does this mean that the Filipino people are tired of
condemning massive electoral fraud, putting a stop to extrajudicial killings
and enforced disappearances, resisting repression, fighting corruption,
struggling against hunger and poverty? Does this mean that the Filipino
people had become apathetic? Does this mean that the Filipino people are
tolerating the lies, the cheating, the blatant bribery, the intimidation and
the killings? Does this mean that the Filipino people are wont to tolerate
impunity and a morally-bankrupt government? If that is so, then we are
witnessing the death of democracy.
But such wishful thinking of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration goes
against the tide of history. Otherwise humankind would have been stuck in the
period of barbarism or slavery. The struggles of humankind have always
been a struggle for greater freedom, democracy, equality and prosperity.
The biggest gain of the Filipino people in ousting the Marcos dictatorship and
the Estrada administration is not only that we were able to get rid of
repressive and corrupt administrations. It is the realization that the Filipino
people can, through collective action, initiate change. And the people’s
collective action is the highest form of democratic expression and people’s
participation in governance. Suppressing it does not silence the people and
make them compliant; on the contrary, repression radicalizes the people. Bulatlat