People power can succeed without the military

By Conrado de Quiros

MANILA: Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan says another people power revolt is not likely to happen because there is no military group to back it up. "I do not want to sound self-serving," he says, "but no leader or group of leaders has surfaced to capture the imagination of the military organization or of the police. I wish the archbishop (Jaime Cardinal Sin) good luck, but I don't think they can get a military component. Without a military breakaway component, people power would be meaningless."

One is tempted to say that being in power has a way of addling people's brains and making them forgetful. But one remembers that Honasan has been a little confused about what happened at Edsa long before he became senator. One remembers that he's been clueless about people power long before he became senator.

His version of what happened at Edsa is actually the same one his idol, Juan Ponce Enrile, keeps telling the public like a veteran showing off his spurious wounds in a bar. Namely, that were it not for him (Enrile), Fidel Ramos and their protegees in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos would have remained in power. Were it not for them, Corazon Aquino would not have become president. Were it not for them, the crowd that massed at Edsa might have been turned into hamburger by Marcos' tanks.

The opposite is true. Were it not for the crowd that massed at Edsa, Enrile, Ramos, Honasan et al. would have been mixed in the cement by Marcos' howitzers, as Fabian Ver demanded. It was the crowd that went to the camps, despite the monumental dangers they faced (it's easy to imagine now how everyone would have wanted to be a hero, not so easy then when the prospect of being added to the country's mounting body count was very real) that stopped the tanks and the troops that had been ordered to drag out the presumed traitors or leave where they were in bits and pieces.

Just as well, were it not for Cory, or what she represented, which was a leader that would be the opposite of Marcos, Enrile, Ramos and Honasan would not have gotten where they are. The crowd did not risk life and limb for them, they did so for Cory. A pity that Cory would not see too that it wasn't just the blood of Ninoy that had brought her to where she was. It was the blood of those who had been "salvaged," made to disappear, and tortured for keeping the fires of freedom alive.

And still just as well, were it not for the people, who risked everything, heeding more than the call of Cardinal Sin and Butz Aquino, heeding in fact the call of their heart and their conscience, Marcos would have remained in Malacanang and the military mutineers would have gone to Valhalla. The point is simple: People power is essential, military support is gratuitous. People power can succeed without a military mutiny. A military mutiny cannot succeed without people power.

Without a military breakaway, people power would be meaningless? Without people power, a military breakaway would be meaningless!

I myself have little doubt that if Erap were acquitted, people power will follow as naturally as the sun does at the end of night. It's already there, in case you haven't noticed: in the protest in the streets, in homes and offices, in cyberspace, the newest and most powerful outlet for public opinion today. Why should people power follow the same path as Edsa? Each historical time creates its own challenges and its own responses.

At the very least, I do not know that the overthrow of Marcos itself would have been impossible without the military mutiny. It might have taken longer, or been bloodier, but the end was near for Marcos. The writing on the wall was there, not least in American policy, which had taken a turn toward supporting democratic alternatives and abandoning tyrants.

More than that, before Enrile and others mutinied -- which was the result of being discovered rather than of being disabused -- the anti-Marcos forces were already talking of mounting a civil disobedience movement to protest the results of the "snap election," which Marcos won.

The same civil disobedience movement is just waiting to be unleashed today -- to protest the results of the trial, if it should prove to be rigged like those of the "snap election." The writing on the wall is there for Erap -- not least in foreign investment, which has deserted the country like a wife a philandering husband.

I am not discounting acts of grace, such as a military mutiny -- after all, today's crisis or opportunity began with one, which was Chavit Singson seeing the light from being on the other side of a gun barrel -- but I am counting more on the ultimate miracle, which is Filipinos discovering their capacity to work as one. A reporter asked me recently if I thought civil disobedience would be very hard to carry out. I said, how hard could it be not to pay your taxes? You would merely be adding principle to your favorite pastime.

But more than all this, to imagine that people power is there only to work a putsch is to miss the essence of people power altogether. Which is what Honasan, his arguably larger-than-life role in Edsa notwithstanding, has always missed.

People power is not just about ousting a tyrant, it is about making sure a new tyrant doesn't come in his place. People power is not just about toppling a tyranny, it is about building a just order in its place. People power is not just about disempowering illegitimate rulers, it is about empowering the true rulers of a democratic country, who are its people.

People power is not just an event, it is a process. It is not just an end, it is a means. It is not just taking power from the few, it is giving power to the many. I would imagine that is more possible today than at Edsa.

Today's events have been tremendously empowering in many ways. The impeachment trial alone has been vastly enlightening, giving the public to know not just the heights of thievery in public office but the precise ways in which the theft is wreaked.

It has given the public a powerful weapon -- the law, hitherto a means only of fomenting injustice -- with which to do something about wrongdoing in public office. It has awakened in the public their capacity to make history, to reach beyond their grasp, to look beyond their horizon, to rise beyond themselves.

There is no charismatic figure today to drive the people to heights of greatness and heroism?

Ah, but then and now, truth is the most compelling force there is. Then and now, justice is the most irresistible power there is. Then and now, freedom is the most charismatic figure there is.

-- The Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network