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.