MANILA, Philippines – The nation may be forging on with another Aquino at the helm 26 years after the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, but for the militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, this is not necessarily a sign of better things to come.
Bayan said that if the preceding years have shown anything, it is that the “ruling elite” could not be counted on to bring about much-needed change in the country.
Bayan said President Benigno Aquino III did not offer much to pin hopes on. It said his Edsa anniversary speech was just a rehash of his previous “daang matuwid” (straight path) rhetoric, and just glorified his administration’s conditional cash transfer program and improved investment ratings from foreign agencies.
But human rights violations continue, and even the victims of the Marcos dictatorship have yet to receive true and complete justice, it said. The victims of human right violations under the recent Arroyo administration have yet to receive their due as well, it added. Along with these, hunger, poverty, unemployment and US intervention continue.
“If there’s anything we learned from EDSA and the last 26 years is that we can’t pin our hopes and aspirations for change on the ruling elite. These dreams have been betrayed by all post-EDSA 1 regimes. The current regime’s combination of anti-corruption rhetoric, CCT and PPP won’t bail us out of the worsening crisis,” Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes said in a statement.
Still, Bayan joined the nation in commemorating the 1986 People Power Revolution as a tribute to the Filipinos who rose up to fight for what they believed was right, it said.
“We commemorate EDSA 1 not because it represents a heroism that is singularly ascribed to any one person or political ‘color’. We commemorate EDSA 1 because it represents the Filipino people’s dreams and aspirations that have yet to be fulfilled,” Reyes said.
“And these dreams and aspirations will not likely be fulfilled even under the second Aquino regime. We definitely have no illusions in that regard,” he said.
According to Reyes, change for the good of the country must come from the people and not from any of the leaders who have their own interests.
“The biggest lesson of EDSA is that if we want real change, we have to rely on the people’s collective and determined struggle for national independence and genuine democracy,” he said.
The 1986 revolution swept Corazon Aquino to power and led to the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the country as dictator for years. Twenty-four years later, her son Benigno Aquino III rose to the presidency, a victory attributed mostly to the wave of remembrance and gratitude for his mother, who passed away the previous year.