Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lt. General
Fidel V. Ramos confirm their break with the Marcos
Government and their support for Corazon Aquino.
GLORY DAYS
BY ANTHONY SPAETH
CRISIS
On Feb. 22, 1986, I threw a birthday party for my five-year-old son at
a McDonald’s in Manila. During the party, one of the staff members called me to the
phone behind the hamburger counter (we did not have cellphones yet). An informant
warned me that something important was happening.
At dusk, I arrived at Camp Aguinaldo, a military building on Epifano de los Santos
Avenue (EDSA). The building of the Defense Ministry headquarters was dark; no one
had turned on the lights. Groups of soldiers were carrying machine guns around. They
looked frightened.
Why were the soldiers
frightened?
Those soldiers had reason to be frightened. Led by Defense Minister Juan Ponce
Enrile and national police chief General Fidel Ramos, those soldiers were rebelling
against Ferdinand Marcos. He had ruled the Philippines for more than 20 years.
Ferdinand Marcos was a dictator, who was supported by the U.S. government.
Marcos had learned of the rebel leaders’ plan for a coup and this forced the soldiers
to Camp Aguinaldo on Feb. 22, 1986. Marcos had a military power of 140,000 soldiers.
The rebels at Camp Aguinaldo numbered 300.
Enrile and Ramos held a press conference expressing their willingness to die.
Afterward, we journalists discovered that we had been locked inside the compound
by the soldiers. They needed a ring of human shields to protect them against Marcos’
anger. We were the human shields.
Almost like a miracle, support was given by Catholic Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin,
who went on the radio to beg Manila’s residents to fill the streets around Aguinaldo.
The people came. It felt strange watching the crowds gather. I struggled to think of
words to describe what was happening on EDSA, to Marcos and the Philippines.
Why did the U.S. withdraw
their support for Marcos?
The words came quickly: People Power. The people stayed on the streets for three
days. Marcos sent in tanks but they were blocked by idealistic students and nuns, who
kneeled in the roads. On Feb. 25, U.S. President Ronald Reagan withdrew his support.
Marcos and his family fled.
A cunning (clever) and ruthless dictator, with military power, was defeated by
crowds of people in flip flops. Prayers and rosaries strengthened by faith were the only
weapons that the Filipinos used to recover their freedom from Marcos’ iron hands.
Manila’s People Power revolution changed the world as we knew it. A year later,
South Koreans took to the streets to force out their dictator. The following year, it
happened in Pakistan as well. In Tiananmen Square and Rangoon, People Power was
brutally suppressed, but not in Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia.
ADAPTED FROM TIME, FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Page 1
Corazon Aquino, the widow of assassinated opposition leader Benigno
“Ninoy” Aquino Jr., made it a point to wear yellow clothes, and her supporters
did the same. This technique had been used in the recent “Color Revolutions” of
Georgia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
How did People Power
change the world?
In 1986, Filipinos invented a powerful political tool that has freed tens of
millions of people oppressed by their rulers. But 20 years later, People Power
seems successful nearly everywhere else except in the Philippines. Democracy
has failed to transform the Philippines into an economical and political stable
new country. Coup attempts by dissatisfied officers and soldiers are a chronic
problem. Corruption is still ongoing. Although the Philippines is one of the besteducated countries in Asia – 92% of Filipinos are literate – the economy has
never become one of the strongest in Southeast Asia.
Recently, a number of important Filipinos has insisted that the country again
needs a “revolutionary change” or a “change in the system.” They feel that a
dictatorship would be useful, at least for a few years. People Power has made
the nation proud, but it is also a burden.
ANOTHER CRISIS
I recently visited the EDSA Shrine for the first time. It is
squeezed between a 1990s megamall and EDSA’s traffic. Inside the shrine are
murals that show Ninoy Aquino’s assassination, nuns kneeling before tanks and
Cory Aquino’s inauguration as President of the democratic Philippines.
Philippine-style People Power re-erupts every now and then at the shrine. In
January 2001, crowds gathered outside the shrine to demand the ousting of
another President, Joseph Estrada. Called to gather by Cory Aquino, the Catholic
Church and businessmen worried about political instability, thousands of people
gathered on EDSA. The military did not support Estrada. Vice President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo took the presidential oath at the shrine.
NOTE: In September 2007
Estrada was convicted of
plundering and sentenced to a
maximum of 40 years in
prison. The following month,
however, Estrada was
pardoned by Arroyo. In
October 2009 he announced
his candidacy for president,
but he was defeated in the
May 2010 elections by
Benigno S. Aquino III (son of
Benigno Aquino, Jr. and
Corazon Aquino).
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 1986 AND 2001 PEOPLE POWER
The first
People Power revolt got rid of a dictator (who was never imprisoned). Estrada,
however, had won a presidential election by a landslide, with a lot of support
from the poor, and is under house arrest to this day. Many of his supporters
stormed Malacañang (residence of the president) to free Estrada, but were
beaten back.
THE PEOPLE POWER REVOLTS
The events of 1986 are known as EDSA I
(uno), which led to EDSA II (dos), and the poor people’s rebellion on behalf of of
Estrada, is EDSA III (tres).
ADAPTED FROM TIME, FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Page 2
To impeach: to lay
charges against a public
official, e.g. president,
and bring to trial for
misconduct
EDSA IV is possible. Arroyo knows this. She became
the first President to gain office by People Power. 2005 was a terrible year for her
presidency. First her husband and son were accused of making money from an
illegal lottery. Then, a person in military intelligence leaked a wiretapped phone
conversation in which Arroyo seemed to be arranging vote fraud with an Election
Commission official during the 2004 presidential election. The Senate ordered
hearings on the allegations against Arroyo’s husband and son; the House of
Representatives did the same on the phone call tape, and started impeachment
proceedings. On 8 July 2005, ten members of Arroyo’s cabinet resigned. Many
people predicted that Arroyo would resign or EDSA IV would begin. At the last
minute, Arroyo was saved by Fidel Ramos, a People Power hero, who went on
television with Arroyo.
ARROYO AND EDSA IV?
What does a People Power
CONVALESCENCE
For People Power to succeed, two elements are required:
revolution need to be
masses on the streets, and a split between the President and the military.
successful?
I recently had dinner with the leaders of the 1986 group that planned a coup to
overthrow Marcos. This group called itself the Reform the Armed Forces Movement
(RAM). According to Gregorio Honasan, one of the leaders, People Power “wasn’t antianything. It was for something – change, good governance.” He believes that without
RAM, Cory Aquino and her crowd would never have found a way to topple Marcos.
I asked the men if People Power changed the Philippines for the better. Honasan talks
about the eternal rottenness of the Philippine system, how power never shifted from
élite politicians and how RAM was hoodwinked into forcing a change that didn’t alter
(change) anything. The men belief that if they had taken full control in 1986, and
suspended democracy for up to three years, then the Philippines would have been better
off for it.
IS THE REVOLUTION COMPLETE?
Twenty years after EDSA I, many Filipinos have
concluded that democracy is stupid and impractical in their country. Senator Leticia
What evidence is there
Shahani, Fidel Ramos’ sister, published an official report in 1988 on the weaknesses:
earlier in the article that
Filipinos tend to be loyal to Filipinos are passive, unreflective, undisciplined and tend to be loyal to people rather
people rather than ideals
than institutions or ideals. This hasn’t changed and Filipinos are getting the leaders they
or institutions?
deserve. Filipinos deserved the dictator, and they deserve the current mess.
Do you agree that someIt’s very easy to forget the good that began when the Marcos dictatorship ended: death
times a nation needs to
squads no longer patrol cities shooting human-rights lawyers. Thousands of Muslim
have a dictator as a leader?
separatists have been pulled into the democratic system. The habeas corpus law (to
bring a prisoner before a judge) was restored. The Philippine press is now free, and even
irresponsible.
ADAPTED FROM TIME, FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Page 3
There is a weakness in the post-People Power constitution of 1987. The Philippines have a U.S.-style presidential
system, but the President may be in office for a single five-year term only. This was done apparently to prevent a
future leader from holding on to power as Marcos did. There were some consequences to this. For example,
Ramos, a good president, could not be re-elected.
Ramos believes that the constitution needs to be changed so that the presidential system is replaced with a
parliament. He has demanded this of Arroyo as payback for his support last July. Officially, she has agreed, but
she’s dragging her heels, because she does not want to cut short her own presidential term, which ends in 2010.
WHY HAVE A PARLIAMENT? In a parliamentary system, the government can be pulled down legally at any time
without resorting to People Power; and if the people in power in the government have a fixed term in office, then
other politicians will have greater opportunity to run for office and will not have to call on the people to gather on
EDSA.
People Power was the Philippines’ contribution to history, a gift to the world. For the Philippines, it was
everything, and yet not enough.
3 reasons that support the notion the Philippines is a
better nation after People Power
3 reasons that the Philippines is worse off after People
Power
Decision: Was the People Power movement successful or not in the Philippines?
ADAPTED FROM TIME, FEBRUARY 27, 2006
Page 4