FORMER President Corazon Aquino flashes her trademark Laban (fight) sign during the “Mass for Truth” at the Redemptorist Church in Baclaran commemorating the 22nd anniversary of EDSA I people power uprising on Monday. EDWIN BACASMAS
By Beverly T. Natividad, TJ Burgonio, Tarra Quismundo Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 01:06:00 02/26/2008
MANILA, Philippines -- People power is alive in the country despite the absence of huge rallies calling for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down, said a Catholic priest who likened the allegations of corruption against the Arroyo administration to a bad tooth that should be extracted.
“People power is not dead,” Fr. Joey Echano said Monday in a homily during a Mass for truth at the historic Baclaran church in Parañaque City to mark the anniversary of People Power I that toppled a dictator 22 years ago.
If people are looking for expressions of people power similar to those in 1986 and 2001, then it is not there anymore, Echano told a crowd of civil society groups, past and incumbent government officials, the religious, former President Corazon C. Aquino and ZTE key witness Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr.
“People power will come in time, one that is stronger than in the past,” said Echano, vice provincial superior of the Redemptorist Order in Manila.
He described the charges of corruption against the Arroyo administration as “severe (malala).”
“This is like a too rotten tooth that needs to be pulled out,” Echano said.
Subdued message
Aquino, who was swept to power after the 1986 People Power Revolution, stopped short of calling for another people power but instead issued a subdued message.
“Let’s continue our oneness, not only with Jun (Lozada), but in order to find out the truth,” she said in a speech after the Mass at the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine in Baclaran.
The democracy icon, wearing her trademark bright yellow blouse and dark pants, later encouraged indignation rallies demanding accountability from Ms Arroyo over an anomalous broadband network deal.
“We should continue our prayers and gathering and search for the truth,” Aquino told reporters when asked about options to resolve the issue in the face of the President’s defiance.
“We should have other Jun Lozadas, who can tell more about the truth,” she added, while walking to her car.
Echoing the challenge for a “new brand of people power” made earlier by Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, Echano said civil society was still looking for new ways and new symbols to launch its new people power.
He reminded the faithful not to rely on the leadership of big personalities and popular politicos to launch a “people power.”
People power, or communal action called by the Church, means change in the social system and the individual, Echano said. “People power is us. We are people power. Change is us. We are change,” he said.
While the administration has repeatedly downplayed mounting communal actions for the truth as mere political noise that only serve to destabilize the economy, truth is an important component of freedom and economic growth, according to Echano.
“There can be no true [economic] growth without truth. The country can’t move on if the government is covered with lies,” he said.
A motley crowd of the religious, civil society, youth and the masses attended the emotionally charged Mass, which was replete with symbolism, inside the packed church also known as Redemptorist Church.
Seated in the same front pew with Aquino and Lozada were Sr. Mary John Mananzan of St. Scholastica’s College, Br. Armin Luistro FSC of La Salle Green Hills and Lozada’s sister Carmen.
Across the aisle, also in the front pew, were former Senate President Franklin Drilon and his wife, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, Gina de Venecia, former Secretaries Guillermo Parayno, Bert Lina, Teresita Deles, Vicky Garchitorena and Ramon del Rosario of the Makati Business Club.
In his sermon, Echano noted that the two major People Power I players -- then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and then Vice Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos -- had gone their separate ways.
Then acknowledging Aquino, he said: “But Tita Cory is still with us.” Amid loud applause, he added: “Di ka nag-iisa (You’re not alone).”
At this point, Aquino rose from her seat, turned around and flashed the L sign (for laban or fight), drawing louder applause and cheers.
Candle for truth
During the Mass, celebrated by Fr. Ino Cuete and concelebrated by 34 other Redemptorist priests, Aquino walked up to the altar to light the “candle of truth.”
When she was called up to speak after the Mass, the crowd, including some wearing yellow shirts, chanted “Cory, Cory, Cory!”
During the Offertory, a girl carried a lighted torch, Leah Navarro of the Black & White Movement a crown, Vicente Romano also of the B&W Movement a Philippine flag, a nun the image of the Virgin Mary, and a brother, a huge rosary, to the altar.
After the Mass, “Bayan Ko” was played, with the priests and the Mass-goers raising their fists or flashing the L sign, as images of Ms Arroyo, protest rallies, Jose Rizal, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., and the flag were flashed on TV monitors around the church, in the most stirring moment of the event.
The crowd included Sen. Benigno Aquino III, Representatives Erin Tañada and Satur Ocampo, Grace Poe (daughter of the late presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr.), Rez Cortez, Armida Siguion-Reyna, former Cabinet Secretaries Cesar Purisima and Florencio Abad, Ambassador Howard Dee, and former Manila Mayor Gemiliano Lopez.
Lozada also spoke at the gathering. The star witness in the Senate probe of the scrapped broadband deal called on the nation to tell, serve and defend the truth.
“If you will allow me to give a theme to this new movement of the nation: That a true Filipino is one who tells the truth; that a true Filipino is one who serves the truth; and that a true Filipino is one who defends the truth,” said Lozada, his message ringing out in echoes inside the church.
“What the nation is clamoring for now is the truth,” he said.
Lozada was welcomed like the hero he has become at the Redemptorist Church.
It was his latest stop in a string of appearances in churches, universities and schools since becoming the new rallying point for change because of his revelations about the broadband deal, daringly linking the President’s husband Jose Miguel Arroyo and former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr. to the padded contract.
Earning a thunder of applause from an audience of around 3,000 people, Lozada gave a piece of advice to those among his countrymen who are praying for change.
“Don’t just push away evil but also fill your heart with good. We won’t succeed. We will again falter if all we think of is pushing away evil,” Lozada said in a 10-minute speech he delivered mostly in Filipino.
Indignation rallies
While subdued, former President Aquino’s message was seen by civil society groups as an expression of support for stepped-up indignation rallies, and in the long run, people power.
“What she meant was that the people’s expression to search for the truth continues,” Romano, convenor of the Black & White Movement, said in an interview after the Mass.
Some members of the “Hyatt 10” -- members of the Arroyo Cabinet and government executives who quit en masse in July 2005 amid charges of electoral fraud -- viewed Aquino’s message as support for people power.
“We should search for the truth, and insist on the institutions to be truthful and all those who hold power to be truthful. If they don’t tell the truth, they have no right to stay in power,” Deles said.
“That’s her call to action, which refers to any means. She has said that already. That’s people power,” she added.
Drilon said Aquino’s message to the people was to come together and step up the indignation rallies.
“It only means that she can’t do this alone. Jun Lozada can’t do it alone. The priests can’t do it alone. The people must join her; they must join in this effort to ferret out the truth. Only with the support of the people will we succeed,” he said.
Asked by what means, Drilon said: “Continuous expression of indignation as we have shown today, and as we have shown in the past several weeks, and hopefully, we’ll continue to show in the coming weeks.”
Purisima said: “I’m here. I’m praying for the truth, because that’s what the country needs to move forward.”
Garchitorena said, “Truth, that’s something that everybody must rally around. We must be true to ourselves, to our values, to our country.”
Drilon said that the people should step up the indignation rallies in the face of the President’s defiance.
“The option is to continuously put pressure on the administration so that at the very least the abuse of power that we saw in the past could no longer be repeated, because as they say, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” he said.
Purisima said: “I’m a big believer in prayer. So we continue to pray for the truth, and ask our people to continue to work, and ask for the truth.”
More people aware of truth
Abad said that no one, including Ms Arroyo, could predict what would happen in the coming days.
“What we can predict will happen is that more and more people are already becoming more aware of the truth, and are willing to take a risk, to doing something to bring out the truth,” he said.
Navarro lauded the strong statement of the Redemptorist Fathers despite the Church’s lack of a unified stand on the issue.
“I think he is a man of God but he is also a Filipino, who has feelings just as much as we do on what should prosper. Even more so because he is a priest, that he knows that the truth has to prevail,” Navarro said of Echano.
Navarro said that for the most part, the B & W Movement felt that the Church was behind its clamor for truth and an end to corruption in government.
But, she said, like any other sector of society, some Church men may have already been “compromised and decayed,” to give “unholy loyalty” to Ms Arroyo because of the donations she has given to individual parishes and priests and bishops.
“They feel they have to support GMA (Ms Arroyo) because they have misinterpreted the donations she has given them. They should not take [these donations] personally,” she said.
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