Killing Edsa

Last month, rather than grace the annual celebrations of the 1986 Edsa Revolution many endearingly call “People Power,” President Rodrigo R. Duterte chose instead to remain in Davao City at the far end of the archipelago. The distance from Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (Edsa) alone was a brazenly graphic and deafening shout-out that declared in no uncertain terms what he thought of that historic and noble attempt to depose evil with nothing more than potent righteousness and prayer. 

On the opposite end of righteousness the snub was a first for a Philippine president. Since 1986, among an unbroken line of presidents who stood opposite the dictatorship that had come before, even Joseph E. Estrada, who was in those years among the powers-that-were, graced the Edsa celebrations as a statesman, honoring it and inspiring others to remember when a despot was deposed with fervent piety.

In the wake of the Edsa Revolution, Estrada might have lost his job as mayor, one he held until 1986, but he was eventually able to resurrect himself as a senator and then as vice president. Eventually he would take the reins of power and move into Malacañang.

As former president Estrada understood the demands of statesmanship. In the matter of celebrating Edsa, he was not one to downgrade what had become a source of national pride even if he might have stood opposite its ideological foundations prior to 1986.

Unfortunately, politicians in the aftermath politicized not only the Edsa Revolution but more important, its subsequent commemorations. However politicized, they still celebrated it. Until Duterte came along.

Duterte makes no pretensions although celebrating Edsa can hardly be called pretentious. The freedoms won were genuine. In fact, counting those heady days in February, Filipinos began exercising what they had prayed for as they blocked armies that then were committed to perpetuating the dictatorship.

Deliberately snubbing last month’s Edsa celebrations and virtually giving us a hard slap on our collective faces, ironically Duterte himself is a beneficiary of the few freedoms won from 1986.

Let us apply a bit of arithmetic progression. If Edsa had not unseated Ferdinand E. Marcos we would not be enjoying the freedom to elect according to the depth of our intellect and the pull of our passions however wise or unwise our choices eventually are. Cory Aquino would not have been president. Neither would Fidel Ramos, Estrada, Gloria Arroyo and Cory’s son.

After Ramos, we would not have enjoyed the economic leeway to gamble with Estrada, nor would we have the gonads to replace him with Gloria Arroyo. Nor might we turn indignation into votes for Cory’s son, Benigno III.

As we time-travelled farther forward from the Edsa Revolution, its ethical impact waned and in time so lost its influence resulting in the Estrada presidency. Unfortunately that quickly went south compelling us to again resort to “People Power”.

Analyze the freedoms won in 1986. From 1986 to today our political realities warped rather than improved. We’ve once voted bungling buffoonery into the bureaucracy. And then we reprised that ignominy. Two of our presidents had seen the inside of a prison cell. A third may likely be on his way there. Worse, after a few years we set them free. And then we reinstalled them in positions of power. Recently, following a Supreme Court ruling, we buried a rotted cadaver on hallowed ground among genuine heroes.

Look who’ve comprised our senate since 1986. Three accused putschists, three accused of graft and corruption involving the pork barrel scams, and three currently in prison. One accused of heinous crimes and a massacre, one accused of involvement in the illegal drug trade and another accused of plagiarism. It is only the limitations of column space that prevent us from going on and on.

Edsa simply allowed us the freedom to be irresponsible enough to ignore both intellect and principles so that we might elect based on our immaturity. Note the comparative economic data that substantiate our collective stupidity.

Between 1986 and 2016, while GDP growth increased from 3.2 percent to 7.1 percent per capita GDP remained lowest in the region. Even Thailand, our economic twin, registered growth 2.20 times ours.

Unemployment was also the highest in the region. Worse, the bigger problem of underemployment remained between 25 percent and 33 percent, while the labor participation rate under Benigno Aquino III, those looking for work, bloated to 63.4 percent from 62.9 percent in 1986.

As a counterpoint that should have overturned an oppressive plutocracy the Edsa Revolution was a failure. Under Aquino the Gini Coefficient that measures inequality worsened to 43.1 percent from 41.04 percent in 1986. Aquino could have resurrected the economic promise of Edsa. Instead, he pampered the plutocracy.

Duterte did not snub Edsa. It was DOA (dead on arrival). We killed it. Ironically, Aquino delivered the final coup de grace.