People Power “hijack”?
Filipinos mark Sunday the 26th anniversary of toppling a dictator without bloodshed. That flower-in-the-gun-barrel model is refracted in Ghandi’s march to protest the Salt Tax in 1930 to Czechslovakia’s Velvet Revolution of 1988 and Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolt last year.
People Power never offered a one-size-fits-all pattern. Uzbekistan’s brutal suppression of demonstrators showed that. So does Syria’s unstaunched spilling of blood.
For 11 months now, Syrians staged People Power rallies, after mosque prayers. They seek freedoms that Filipinos, since Edsa I, take for granted. In response, President Bashar al-Assad sent his tanks in. Over 5,000 civilians have been killed.
“They call it the widows’ basement,”wrote Marie Colvin of London’s Sunday Times before a shell killed her Thursday, along with French photographer Remi Ochlik. “Over 300 huddle in this wood factory cellar.
“( One ) is 20-year-old Noor, who lost her husband and home to shells. ‘Our house was hit by a rocket so 17 of us stay in one room,’” she recalls as daughter Mimi, 3, and son Mohamed, 5, cling to her.
“We had nothing but sugar and water for two days and my husband went to find food.” It was the last time she saw Maziad, 30, a mobile phone repairman. “He was torn to pieces by a mortar shell.” For Noor, it was a double tragedy. Adnan, her 27-year-old brother, was killed at Maziad’s side. Everyone in the cellar has a similar story of death.”
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” In 1962, US President John Kenndy warned: Fast forward to Russia and China’s veto of an Arab League peacekeeper plan. That emboldened Assad to slaughter even more.
“Those who take by the sword will die by the sword.” Assad need not look far to see his future. Libya’s Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya cowered in a gutter when shot to death. Bosnia’s Radovan Karad is detained; Scheveningen, accused of war crimes
In contrast, democratic space broadens, albeit jerkily, in Burma where, only three years back, military Tatmadaws smashed the peaceful Saffron Revolution.
Nobel Laureate Aung Saan Suu Kyi with 651 political prisoners were released. Cease-fire agreements with ethnic minority rebels have been signed. Restrictions on campaigning were scrapped after National League for Democracy complained.
“Reforms leave many disorientated by the pace of change,” UK’s Guardian noted. Crowds in Rangoon “clapped as they watched images of monks demonstrating and police baton charges on a big outdoor screen.” Incredible,” said a journalist. “Only months ago, this would led to a lengthy prison sentence.”
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed that Burma chair the regional body in 2014. Asean observers will monitor 1 April elections for 48 parliamentary seats. European Union and the US whittled down sanctions.
This schizophrenic international context is a backdrop for a 26th Edsa Anniversary debate if People Power would be hijacked? Why? To extricate, from impeachment’s bog a Supreme Court Chief Justice who cannot get his math right, whether on glitzy condos or statements of assets and liabilities.
Justice Renato Corona’s defense counsel repeatedly threatens to end impeachment on grounds of mistrial. Some 7,000 Iglesia Ni Kristo demonstrators, waving identically printed posters, rallied for a teary Corona and wife.
INC says it’s Feb. 28 rally at Quirino Grandstand would be “a Bible exposition.” “We take their word for it,” Malacañang said. “Leaks” say otherwise. The pro-Corona INC would air “demands” on the impeachment, foreshadowed in their “dry run” rally. That’s speculation—for now.
An INK rally, cheek by jowl with Edsa’s anniversary, differs from historical patterns. INC were “no-shows” at the two earlier People Power revolts, since it backed Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada..
INC adherents make up 2.3% of the population, Philippine Demographic Profile 2012 shows. But that small base is parlayed into political clout by INC bloc voting. Between 68 and 84 percent of members vote for candidates, handpicked by leadership, ABS-CBN surveys reveal.
Impeachment trial chair Juan Ponce Enrile slammed the door on threats to abort impeachment on grounds of mistrial, noted Inquirer’s Amando Doronila. “He’d not allow a disruption that might lead to another People Power Revolution … The collapse of Estrada impeachment, in 2001, haunts everybody … People watch if the impeachment court ends up in the streets … ”
“ Corona ’s supporters want to rally in support of him? Fine,” wrote Inquirer’s Conrad Quiros. “There’s People Power to show what the rest of this country thinks about him, about justices who … circle(d) wagons around him … People Power need not be confined to ousting tyrants and usurpers … It can always be used to right wrongs.”
Morning after the 26th Edsa l rites, the trial resumes its plodding probe. The Chief Justice ignored Black and White Movement calls: issue “a simple letter of consent that would allow the court to open ( his ) dollar accounts.”
Is July 15, 2003 too far to remember? That was when the Supreme Court (GR 152154) flayed Marcoses for secreting loot in Swiss accounts and shell foundations. Ferdinand and Imelda signed as William Saunders and Jane Ryan.
The Court ordered $658,175,373 from the Marcoses stash forfeited to government, over objections by Imelda and now senator-judge Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Decision ponente? Justice Renato Corona.
