(UPDATE 2) 22 years after EDSA 1, nation remains divided
Arroyo remains unmoved by ouster calls
By Joel Guinto, Thea Alberto, Maila Ager, Tetch Torres, Erika Tapalla, Abi Kwok
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 18:43:00 02/25/2008
Filed Under: Edsa 1
MANILA, Philippines -- Twenty-two years to the day when a popular uprising in 1986 toppled the Marcos dictatorship, the event was commemorated Monday by calls for a repeat to oust an administration accused of corruption and a beleaguered president warning that doing so would be akin to national suicide.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) said the rallies were peaceful.
For the first time since 2005, hundreds of activists under the banner of the leftist Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance), joined by former vice president Teofisto Guingona Jr., set foot on historic Mendiola, at the approaches to Malacañang Palace, to demand the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Before this, the bridge, now named after the late freedom icon Don Chino Roces, had been declared a no-rally zone by the government.
Ironically, Arroyo herself benefited from a second popular uprising that swept her to power after it ousted then president Joseph Estrada, also on charges of massive corruption.
At the jampacked Baclaran church in Parañaque City, ordinary people, politicians, civil society personalities and businessmen, led by former president Corazon Aquino, heard a concelebrated mass that saw parish priest Joey Echano assuring the congregation during his homily that people power “is not dead, it will rise stronger.”
He also invoked the battle cry of the 1986 uprising, "Tama na sobra na kumilos na [Enough is enough, act now]."
Seated beside Aquino was Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr., the former government bureaucrat whose testimony to the Senate on the alleged corruption surrounding a $329-million national broadband network (NBN) contract with China’s ZTE Corp. -- in which Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel, and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr., a close presidential ally, have been implicated -- and alleged abduction by state security have triggered the recent calls for the President’s ouster.
Over the weekend, in an apparent attempt to deflect the heat, Arroyo admitted knowing that there were irregularities in the contract but allowed its signing anyway to preserve the country’s relations with China, and that she ordered the deal cancelled later.
But instead of a reprieve, Arroyo’s admission only seemed to draw her deeper into the scandal, with opposition politicians saying she had, in effect, implicated herself in an illegal act.
Another group activists led by Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez marched along Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA), where both uprisings, also called the EDSA revolts, took place, marching past the Catholic shrine built on the site where unarmed people faced down a column of tanks in 1986, on their way to the Ateneo de Manila University in Quezon City, where a “Concert for Truth and Accountability” is being staged as of this posting.
The group of Iñiguez, which included Akbayan Representative Rissa Hontiveros-Baraquel and former congresswoman Etta Rosales, had to make their way past three police and military barricades.
Before the concert at the Ateneo, students and professors staged a noise barrage organized by Team RP for Truth, Reform and Accountability, snarling traffic along Katipunan Avenue as they urged motorists to blow their horns and people gathered to watch or join them.
The rallyists at Mendiola left after three hours for a “snake rally” in communities in the Sampaloc district before proceeding to España street for a torch parade and noise barrage.
Manila Police District director Roberto Rosales thanked the protesters for cooperating to keep the rally peaceful. He said he was confident future protests at Mendiola would be conducted in a similar manner.
PNP Director General Avelino Razon Jr. credited police preparations for keeping the protests peaceful.
"All our preparations paid off, from the coordination with group leaders, to the deployment of police visibility patrols and assignment of security personnel to ensure order in the EDSA Day activities and mass actions," Razon said in a statement.
But Razon also credited the cooperation of both pro- and anti-administration groups.
Director Geary Barias, National Capital Region Police Office, noted only one incident, a brief scuffle Monday morning when protesters were prevented from painting slogans on the columns and retaining walls of the Metro Rail Transit along EDSA.
But Senior Superintendent Nicanor A Bartolome, PNP spokesman said the National Operations Center in Camp Crame will continue monitoring other activities in Manila and in Cebu City.
Arroyo did find some support. At Manila’s Liwasang Bonifacio, a crowd estimated by police to be 4,000 to 5,000 people, including local government officials, gathered Monday afternoon to stage their own rally in support of Arroyo but at just past 4 p.m., two hours before they were scheduled to end, they were dispersed by a downpour.
The President herself did not show up for the official commemoration ceremonies at the People Power Monument, where police and military commanders led their men in a “unity walk” to dispel talk of an impending coup and later reiterated their pledges of support for Arroyo, offering assurances that security forces would not be involved in any attempt to oust her.
Arroyo instead graced the launch of an anti-poverty program in Caloocan where she said the “true spirit” of people power was “helping the poorest of the poor.”
Later, in Cavite province, she took a swipe at senators investigating the NBN deal controversy, urging people to remind the lawmakers to observe the “rule of law” and reiterating earlier calls to let the courts decide on the charges stemming from the scandal-tainted contract, which she scrapped soon after the Senate opened its inquiry.
At the official EDSA 1 rites, Armed Forces chief General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. offered assurances of the military’s “unequivocal allegiance to the flag, the Constitution, and we give our word not to engage in any partisan political exercise.”
“The military was and is a proud part of people power, but the military must not be coaxed to lead or join another EDSA,” he said.
An unsuccessful coup attempt triggered the 1986 EDSA uprising, while the military has been described as crucial to Arroyo’s rise to power in 2001 when it turned its back on Estrada.
But military officers facing charges for an alleged coup attempt against Arroyo in 2006 urged soldiers to turn against Arroyo.
"Going out of barracks to join the people in communal action to rid the ills that befell our nation is a Constitutional duty," Brigadier General Danilo Lim said in a statement. “In fact, it is demanded of us, as soldiers, by the very people whom we failed. Let us not, this time, fail them."
The NBN scandal has also caused cracks in the administration coalition, with Pangasinan Representative Jose de Venecia Jr.. once one of Arroyo’s staunchest allies, ousted as House Speaker for failing to rein in his son, Jose III, from testifying on the alleged irregularities surrounding the NBN deal.
De Venecia, a businessman and losing bidder for the contract, was the original whistleblower in the scandal.
The former Speaker called on Arroyo to resign, saying it was “hopeless” for her to lead a moral revolution.
Estrada, whom Arroyo pardoned soon after his conviction for plunder, also reversed an earlier position not to join calls for her resignation and urged the military to support such calls.
But even as more and more clergy and religious have been joining the clamor for Arroyo to go, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, called on priests to “accompany the people, join the people not in rallies or protests but in transformation through faith in God.”
He also took a swipe at the rich. “Ang mga mayayaman, nagmamartsa, nagmamadali [the rich are taking to the streets, they are rushing things].”
Norman Bordadora, Inquirer; Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Northern Luzon, AP
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