Protest rallies mark Edsa celebration

Illustration by Rene Elevera

Opposition forces led by former President Benigno Aquino III and Vice President Leni Robredo gathered on Saturday at the site of the historic 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution in a show of resistance against the Duterte administration over what they described as threats to democracy, among them the brutal war on drugs and the Friday arrest of staunch Duterte critic Sen. Leila de Lima.

Although he did not address the crowd, Aquino said the Edsa celebration this year should go beyond “mere remembrance.”

“Perhaps this is a reminder to all of us that the fight is not over,” Aquino said, adding that “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Robredo, who also did not address the crowd, said in an interview that celebrating the Edsa event should remind the people of the power they wield.

“We should not forget that power is with the people. Whatever we want to fight for, we can do it if we stand united,” she said.

Solidarity

Wearing black to show solidarity with some 6,000 protestors at the People Power Monument in Quezon City, Aquino also rejected allegations by Duterte spokespersons that supporters of the previous administration were part of destabilization moves.

“How can we be causing destabilization when we are actually offering to help?” Aquino asked.

But the former President denounced the government’s shabby treatment of De Lima, a staunch critic of the drug war, who was arrested on Friday on drug charges based on testimonies by drug convicts.

De Lima, Aquino’s former justice secretary, said the arrest was an act of “political persecution” and revenge for her decade-long efforts to expose Mr. Duterte as head of the Davao Death Squad during his term as city mayor.

On Saturday morning, some 1,000 demonstrators trooped to Camp Aguinaldo to warn that the  crackdown on drugs could foreshadow a repeat of the Marcos dictatorship that was toppled in a bloodless “people power” revolt 31 years ago.

“We are taking the matter seriously. We are warning our people about the threat of rising fascism,” said protest leader Bonifacio Ilagan of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacañang.

Ilagan, a playwright who was tortured for over two years in a police prison under Marcos’ martial rule in the 1970s, cited the “culture of impunity” arising from the extrajudicial killings because of Mr. Duterte’s total war on drugs.

Mr. Duterte, 71, won the presidential election last year on the campaign promise to eradicate illegal drugs by killing tens of thousands of people.  Some 7,000 drug suspects have been killed in police operations and under murky circumstances, sources said.

Across the city on Saturday, hundreds of Duterte supporters began gathering at Rizal Park in Manila for a planned overnight vigil to demonstrate public backing for the President’s drug crackdown.

One of the banners at the site identified its owners as “Friends of Bongbong Marcos,” the dictator’s son and namesake whom Mr. Duterte had introduced as “possibly the country’s next Vice President” during his China visit last year.

The younger Marcos had lodged an election protest against Robredo, claiming fraud in the computerized vote.

Genuine change

Thousands of left-wing activists meanwhile marched on the main highway in Manila to demand “genuine change” promised by the President, calling for the resumption of peace talks with Maoist-led rebels and release of more than 400 political prisoners.

Former President Fidel Ramos and former Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, hailed as the heroes of the 1986 revolution, attended a Mass at the main army base in Manila to mark the anniversary, which Mr. Duterte skipped.

Earlier on Saturday, riot police had hosed down a group of at least 100 people protesting the drug killings at the US Embassy in Manila, though no one was seriously injured.

At  La Salle Green Hills chapel in Mandaluyong City on Saturday afternoon, an ecumenical Mass on Saturday to mark the Edsa revolution’s 31st year ended with the “Oratio Imperata” (obligatory prayer) to end extrajudicial killings.  The prayer is usually invoked for calamities.

The Mass, celebrated by Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, was attended by the laity and members of civil society groups who later proceeded to the People Power Monument.

“Let us express our opposition against violent ways which do not recognize our human rights. At every turn, let us protest all forms of authoritarianism. Let us make a stand for the return of people power, of our faith in our ability to change and better our country through peaceful and humane means,” the De La Salle Philippines president, Brother Jose Mari Jimenez, said during the homily.

Blues, greens, yellows

A group of nuns led by Sr. Regina Kuizon of the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines also read a statement calling for political unity: “Today, there are blues, there are greens, there are yellows, and God gave us a multitude of colors to celebrate … a God who tells us to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Several opposition political figures affiliated with the Liberal Party also attended the Mass, among them Robredo and Senators Bam Aquino, Franklin Drilon, Francis Pangilinan and Risa Hontiveros.

Civic ignorance

Meanwhile on Friday, constitutional expert Christian Monsod warned students at a forum at the University of the Philippines School of Economics against “civic ignorance” that breeds tyrants.

“[If] we do not do anything about it and prefer to live with our frustrations about who is accountable for things that go wrong, someone will eventually come and say, ‘I will solve all your problems if you give me total power,’” the former Commission on Elections chair said.

“And we will give it to him. That’s when democracy dies,” Monsod said, paraphrasing the words of former US Supreme Court Justice David Souter five years before US President Donald Trump and Mr. Duterte came into power.

“We are told by the present government that the problem of our country is imperial Manila, hence the need to shift to federalism,” he added

But Monsod acknowledged: “I submit that we have failed in development not because of the Constitution, but because we have not fully implemented it, especially its provisions on social justice and on local autonomy. The Constitution is not the problem, it is part of the solution.”

Monsod described Mr. Duterte as an enigma because of “inconsistent messages and behavior, language that the civil society does not accept, inability to dialogue because he is not a good listener and muddled governance because of ad hoc or case-to-case decisions.”

Even so, he said he was convinced that the President’s heart “is with the poor.”

“His propoor agenda is correct, but the means he wants to use are wrong,”  Monsod said, referring to drug-related killings.

For all the promise of a new social order that the 1986 Edsa revolution represented, Monsod said it ended in failure.  “[As] we went our separate ways with our separate causes, we lost something of the dream of a nation and the significance of interconnected lives,” he said.

“You may ask—have we failed Edsa? My answer is yes,” Monsod said. —WITH REPORTS FROM DEXTER CABALZA AND INQUIRER WIRES