The Philippines today marks the 25th anniversary of the 1986 People Power uprising that brought down the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, the epoch-breaking event that continues to inspire people across the world to stare down and confront corrupt rulers and tyrants. Egyptians were inspired some weeks back and the spirit of collective people’s action now hovers over a huge swath of the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Sadly, the wellspring of that spirit, Filipinos themselves, don’t care much anymore. A sense of frustration and disappointment hobbles today’s celebrations.

For indeed, what do post-Marcos regimes and the traditional political elite in the Philippines have to show and tell their constituents and the world in terms of maximizing the two victorious uprisings? The restoration of formal democratic institutions? Periodic elections? Good governance? The prosecution of Marcos and Joseph Estrada? Justice for the murdered, tortured and disappeared freedom-fighters?

The frustration and disappointment runs deep because successive presidents failed to make People Power a permanent reality in governance. Filipino leaders mistrusted the people and instead depended heavily on foreign governments and investors, despotic landlords, greedy big business and their henchmen generals and spin doctors for what we have endured as grossly expensive, graft-ridden, violent, and – most importantly – failed plans to make Philippine democracy more substantive so as to make the country attain peace, progress and prosperity.

The only benefit we ordinary Filipinos obtained from two uprisings was the removal two unwanted and hated leaders — nothing else. The traditional political elite had gained more and were quick to declare People Power “impotent”, “irrelevant” and “archaic” because the formal democratic institutions that were their playground and source of loot had all been restored for their taking. Nothing else matters to these traditional politicians.

Indeed, we don’t care anymore only when these same leaders who day in and day out turn their backs on our People Power aspirations ask us to remember People Power. But for ourselves, our families and our immediate community, we won’t and don’t hesitate, as we have surprised ourselves in the aftermath of Ondoy.

Game-changer

Marcos’ corruption and martial law and Estrada’s own brand of unethical rule are game-changers in Philippine politics and democracy. They showed that traditional politicians can no longer rule the same way that they did prior to 1972. Filipinos themselves had to intervene twice when political institutions and the traditional politicians who run those institutions failed to fix problems such as Marcos and Estrada. Indeed, credit goes to each and every Filipino who stood up, fought and sacrificed to rid the country of these two monsters who occupied the presidency.

The traditional politicians know People Power is a most potent tool in the people’s arsenal, along with strikes, boycotts, demonstrations and other mass actions. That is why they routinely tell us that People Power is passe, archaic, outdated. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had every reason to berate People Power. She knew full well that she was a legitimate target, considering the level of hatred her misrule had inspired among the public.

Retelling the story

The traditional political elite and their mass media cannot even make their minds on how to tell and retell the story of EDSA and the long fight against Marcos. The focus are on icons and shrines, on names and faces of media-manufactured personalities, as if the uprising could have succeeded with only them acting by their their lonesome. The official list of state-canonized EDSA heroes is relatively short and is a continuing insult to the PEOPLE who comprised People Power from 1972 until 1986, and from 1998-2001.

The younger ones are being made to believe that our nation got saved by the likes Corazon Aquino, Jaime Cardinal Sin, Butz Aquino, Juan Ponce Enrile, Fidel V. Ramos and Gringo Honasan. Yes, even Enrile, Ramos and Honasan who the heroic Filipino people protected and cordoned off against Marcos’ tanks and troops are now called heroes and they are happy to lay claim to being called “heroes”. But People Power happened because masses of our people answered the calls of Cardinal Sin and Butz Aquino, and professed their faith in Corazon Aquino. They came out to the streets in droves, in EDSA and other public squares across the country, made ready in no small way by the mass actions that have rocked and challenged the dictatorship in its waning years.

The predominant way of telling the story of the Marcos dictatorship was by saying we were all victims. Of course, that is true but only a half-truth.

Real heroes

For an entire generation of Filipinos stood up against the dictator, many going underground and to the mountains to wage an armed revolution. They fought Marcos through bullets, focusing their firepower on the military Marcos used to terrorize citizens into thinking martial law was good for them. Rich and poor, but mostly middle class and poor, gravitated towards the underground movement where they were given refuge, taught the value of offering their skills and talents for people in the provinces and deprived Marcos of the brainpower that their generation possessed.

A good number organized people in the cities and urban centers, becoming the lieutenants of the big people’s marches and strikes, marshaling people who joined the funerals of martyrs and heroes, including Ninoy Aquino, and, through those mass demonstrations, showing to the world previews of what was to happen on Feb. 22-25, 1986.

The list of these many heroes and martyrs, many dead and some still living, is long. But they are faceless and nameless because the traditional political elite dominating the educational system and the media would do nothing to recognize their sacrifices and their roles in making EDSA 1986 happen and succeed in a mere four days.

It is not different to the way historians tell the story of the Japanese invasion in the 1940s. We are told that liberation came in an instant when American G.I. Joe’s triumphantly returned, but the reality was that Filipinos themselves took up arms in a guerilla war that fought against Japanese aggressors. By the time the US troops returned, Filipinos had dealt strong, nearly lethal blows at the Japanese imperial forces, making the American military’s work a breeze, so to speak.

Justice

The traditional political elite immediately called for reconciliation after EDSA which was a polite way of saying it won’t prosecute Marcos. In other countries where versions of People Power succeeded, the prosecution and truth-telling was swift. Our governments did not learn from lessons of those EDSA editions.

When a number of the “victims” of Marcos — actually they were our heroes who fought the dictator — decided to sue Marcos in US courts, the post-Marcos government of Aquino did not offer support or encouragement. The post-Marcos governments wanted to recover the loot for themselves. Never mind justice. All the government wanted was money. But this landmark class action suit succeeded in the US courts and a jury in Hawaii in 1992 found Marcos liable for human rights violations and various unspeakable atrocities the petitioners endured. That suit was docketed as Hilao et al vs. Marcos. Who Hilao was, the media and all post-Marcos governments have refused to acknowledge, render justice to and compensate. Ditto for the 9,535 other represented in the class action suit.

That Hilao stood for the family of Liliosa Hilao, a student of the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila and editor of PLM’s student paper. She was arrested by Marcos’ goons, thrown in jail, assaulted there and became the first political detainee of Marcos to die while in prison. Her sister, Marie Hilao Enriquez, is still active in activism, especially in human rights work as a way of tribute to Liliosa’s and other young people’s heroism.

What EDSA means

EDSA stands for Epifanio delos Santos, literally Epiphany of Saints. That the common center of the first and second People Power uprisings in the Philippines. EDSA was the staging ground for Filipinos to show that they are the real force to reckon with in causing drastic political changes. The military had to be defended, and not the other way around. The politicians could only attempt to grab the limelight from their own media.

EDSA means more than the ouster of a dictatorship. It symbolizes our aspirations for the kind of government and society we wish to have: A people-powered democracy, with the people playing the starring and central role. People not being the problem but the problem-solvers, for in fact Marcos and Estrada were then the problems, and Filipinos ended the problem by ousting them from office.

Only a few have bothered to ask about it but Filipinos know these lessons and aspirations, and we clearly stated them in the run-up to the EDSA celebrations. We said so so clearly as Egyptians chased Hosni Mubarak out of the presidential palace: Ousting a president is not enough. Ousting a president is easy, but attaining justice and progress takes more effort.

Celebrating EDSA

Yes, we need to celebrate EDSA but perhaps in a different and a more profound way. And what better way to remind us of our EDSA and People Power aspirations than to remember our heroes and martyrs who died for those same aspirations, and to take a good, second look at why we set up monuments and shrines to and proclaimed icons of pro-democracy struggle: To make us always remember of our ideals and the many, magnificent times we stood up and made ourselves proud by moving the country forward. Of the greatness of the Filipino, and of our journey in the long and winding road that leads to genuine freedom and democracy.

25 years after, we Filipinos know the many missed opportunities of 1986 and 2001. We need a truly people-powered leadership that trusts the people and which has the people’s trust. We need to make use of political capital to introduce bold reforms to unleash the creativity and productivity of our people. We need to inspire and support moves to industrialize and modernize the economy and reform land ownership. We need to look into the root causes of the armed movements of Communists and the Bangsamoro whose programs to change this country remain compelling to many. We need to create among the current and next generation, a new array of leaders who will exercise new politics and the politics of change. We need to deliver justice to the victims of Marcos and all the post-Marcos regimes.

Vigilant, relentless application of People Power will make it more possible to attain these steps to national and democratic changes, and make future EDSA celebrations more relevant and more meaningful to many. Anything less will be more of the same that has the past 25 years since those four glorious days of February 1986.