ATENEO STUDY
Civilian, military groups differ on EDSA I
By TJ Burgonio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 06:45:00 09/01/2008
Filed Under: People power, Edsa 1, Research, Military, history
MANILA, Philippines—To civilians, EDSA People Power I was a courageous uprising showing the importance of citizens in saving democracy.
Soldiers, however, view the 1986 revolt as a military coup that failed after civilians took over, and say it shows that military intervention is needed to save democracy.
Also, civilians see People Power I as a success. Their military counterparts regard it as a flop.
All this came to light in a study by Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Psychology and Institute of Philippine Culture, which shows how disparate the views and feelings of the two groups are about the EDSA I that ousted President Ferdinand Marcos.
The civilian respondents described People Power I as courageous, successful, strong, admirable and good.
And their military counterparts? Exactly the opposite.
“Their story is linked to how people want to feel about their group self, and that ‘feeling of and thinking about group self’ also shapes the kind of story that the group holds,” Ateneo’s political psychologist Cristina Montiel explained.
“Even if the same thing happened to all of us, we have different stories in our collective mind.”
For her study, Montiel polled 200 alumni from Ateneo and the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).
Ateneo, PMA respondents
Fifty respondents each from Ateneo and the PMA (Class 1986) and another 50 respondents each from both institutions (Class 2006) were surveyed on the main question: “Was People Power I a nonviolent power shift or a military coup?”
The idea was to probe the two social groups’ collective image of EDSA I. PMA and Ateneo alumni were chosen as respondents because they were “critical student bases” of the two institutions in 1986, Montiel said.
The respondents were first asked what they remembered about EDSA I, and then asked to write down the names of people or groups who made the most impact, good or bad.
Different heroes
The Ateneo alumni from Class 1986 said the most impact was made by the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, President Corazon Aquino, civilians, religious groups and then AFP Vice Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos.
Their military counterparts, also from Class 1986, named Ramos, then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (RAM), religious groups and the military as having made the most impact.
Interestingly, all the respondents from Class 2006 wrote down a similar set of influential figures, albeit in different orders—Corazon Aquino, Ramos, the late opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., Sin and Marcos.
Different sense of history
All the respondents listed “people power”—or the massing of huge numbers of people in the streets—as the most important event that had a bearing on EDSA I, but they differed on the rest.
For instance, the withdrawal of support by Enrile and Ramos from Marcos ranked next in importance among the military men. To civilians, what was next in importance was Ninoy Aquino’s assassination in 1983.
“They have a different sense of history … They have a different storyline,” Montiel said in an interview.
For Part 2 of the study, the respondents were asked to describe EDSA I with the help of a set of 25 adjective pairs: good-bad, sad-happy, strong-weak, courageous-cowardly, successful-unsuccessful, admirable-not admirable, etc.
And they were asked to rate these on a scale of 1-7.
The pairs of courageous-cowardly, successful-unsuccessful, strong-weak, admirable-not admirable, and good-bad emerged with the highest loads.
In the courageous-cowardly pair, the civilians scored an average 6.4 (tending toward courageous), and the military 2.4 (tending toward cowardly); successful-unsuccessful (civilians 5.9, military 2.3); strong-weak (civilian 6, military 2.5); admirable-not admirable (civilians 6.3, military 2.8), and good-bad (civilians 6.2, military 2.9).
“So the military respondents from 1986 and 2006 feel that People Power I was bad, weak, disorganized, not militarized, cowardly, unsuccessful,” Montiel said.
The civilians, on the contrary, saw it in a good light.
When Montiel compared only the responses of the younger generation, the difference was even more stark.
In the courageous-cowardly pair, the civilians obtained an average score of 6.12, as against the military’s 2.68; strong-weak (civilians 5.86, military 2.24); successful-unsuccessful (civilians 5.86, military 2.44); admirable-not admirable (civilians 5.94, military 3.28) and good-bad (civilians 5.8, military 3.38).
“In the social mind of civilians, it (EDSA I) was a nonviolent democratic transition, courageous, successful, admirable and good,” she said.
“This kind of story enhances civilian role in the world famous event, verifies the importance of civilians in democratic transitions, and inspires more civilian interventions like this one,” she added.
In the minds of the military, People Power I was a military coup that turned civilian-led, and cowardly, unsuccessful, weak, not admirable, according to Montiel.
“This kind of story downgrades the civilian role in the event. And it verifies and legitimizes military intervention to save democracy, and inspired nine more military interventions after 1986,” she said.
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