EDSA People Power II uprising as a millstone

Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

Another year, another celebration of the EDSA People Power II uprising in January 2001, another occasion for bathos and regret. On the third anniversary of the revolution, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Socrates Villegas accused politicians of abusing and betraying people power and called on the people to save the nation from them. "The politics of convenience and compromise that we see around us cannot save the nation," he said.

That the strong words should come from a churchman is not surprising. After all, both EDSA People Power revolutions were the handiwork of an interventionist Catholic Church. It was Villegas' former boss, Jaime Cardinal Sin, who got the ball rolling for the January 2001 revolution when he called on President Joseph Estrada to resign for pocketing tobacco tax money and illegal gambling payoffs.

We can only wonder if the words would have been just as trenchant had Sin's replacement, Archbishop Gaudencio Rosales, been there to deliver the homily himself (he did not make it because he had to come from the northern town of Vigan, where he toasted Archbishop Edmundo Abaya on the latter's 75th birthday). Our guess is that Rosales would not have pulled his punches. After all, he also supported the January 2001 revolution.

The strong words reflect the dismay and frustration of many who had thought EDSA II would somehow pull the people together again, much as EDSA People Power I did in 1986, only for the hopes to be dashed as the opportunities for reforms and conversion were squandered one by one, again much as what happened after the first uprising at Metro Manila's EDSA highway. EDSA II has simply gone the way of EDSA I.

But there's a difference. EDSA I retains a certain magic because it signaled, after all, a democratic transition not only in the nation, but also in other nations as well with repressive regimes (remember that EDSA I unleashed the pro-democracy tide that swept South Korea, Poland, Pakistan and the rest of the world). EDSA I remains a valid revolution. If not for it, there would have been no EDSA II.

But EDSA II is problematic because its impact is ambiguous at best. EDSA I toppled a dictatorship and replaced it with a democracy, for better or for worse. EDSA II toppled a corrupt president who, however, was a darling of the illiterate masses. It didn't exactly unify the people; it drove a wedge between them. True enough, it prefigured and resulted in "EDSA III," the counter-revolution of the lumpen proletariat in May 2001.

Moreover, EDSA II was not a clean break with the past. It was not a revolution in the strictest sense because it was an uprising that sought constitutional basis for kicking out Estrada and replacing him with then-Vice President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo. Macapagal-Arroyo herself knows she's laboring under the oppressive burden of the past, particularly the question of her legitimacy. Thus, she has broken her promise not to run in order to seek a presidential mandate of her own.

If EDSA II is heir to the legacy of EDSA I, it is as heir to the disappointment and the frustration of the aftermath of 1986. Although EDSA I was a high point in Philippine history, and its immediate impact was incontrovertible-the toppling of a dictatorship and the birth of the pro-democracy movement worldwide -- it cannot also be gainsaid that since then, Philippine politics has been one long downslide.

Political discourse in this country remains protracted between the bankrupt liberal democracy and the bankrupt Left. The Left does not offer any alternative. In the meantime, traditional politicians have commandeered EDSA and debased its legacy.

The debasement is evident in the aftermath of EDSA II. Seeking to shore up her position and strengthen her bid for legitimacy, the President has compromised the principles of the revolution, formed partnerships with the Old Guard, and practically struck a bargain with the devil himself. The opposition has done likewise, compelling a popular actor with zero credentials to challenge Ms Macapagal-Arroyo, in effect compromising principle and substance in a bid to win the presidency at any cost, come what may.

And so the historic weight of EDSA II, its legacy of spectacular aspiration and spectacular asphyxiation, has become more oppressive in the run-up to the election as politicians jettison principle for compromise after compromise in their eagerness to improve their prospects in May. EDSA II has become a nightmare. It has become a millstone around the neck of its children.