Edsa Tres must not rest

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/1/2006



A wonderful slogan was crafted by advocates of the Edsa Tres movement: “Remember Edsa Tres, People Power will not rest.” Heretofore, the most distinctive catchphrase for Edsa Tres has been “Poor is Power”, which the group UMDJ (United Masses for Democracy and Justice) stakes claim to having authored and is featured prominently in the videos of the May 1, 2001 Edsa Tres which it on a streamer as backdrop to centerstage at the Edsa Shrine. It was a serendipitous to find that slogan akin to President Hugo Chavez’s battlecry in his Venezuela revolution “Power to the Poor”

The Edsa Tres in the Philippines is a phenomenon that has not been seen in recent Asian history, but in Latin America this has been the pattern of the last five years. The phenomenon of “poor people power’ and not just the generic and much abused “People Power” which has been used by every shade of political manipulators, especially the CIA funded “civil society” which more often than not represent special interest groups. In Venezuela the urban poor marched in the hundreds of thousands to support Hugo Chavez in the pre and post coup struggle against oligarch Pedro Carmona backed by the police.

In Bolivia the indigenous people joined the street marches and siege of the last government to demand nationalization of the country’s wealth of natural gas, and eventually install Evo Morales in a legitimate election. That was genuine poor people’s power and not bourgeois or middle class power disguised as popular uprising which is what Edsa Uno and Edsa Dos was in the Philippines. The middle or bourgeois class may think it is “class”, pious and reighteous but it actually is extremely submissive to its big bosses which in a neo-colonial economy are the transitional institutions and corporations.

Edsa Uno and Dos resulted in deeper enslavement of the Philippines to the Western neo-colonial superstructure euphemistically called “globalization”, unlike the genuine popular upheavals in Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay and the popular electoral upsets in Brazil, Chile and Peru which resulted in shaking of Western domination. The Philippines had its popular electoral revolt in 1998 electing the masa’s man, President Joseph E. Estrada but the elite, corrupt theocratic and military cliques, using the middle class as canon fodder, subverted it with “bourgeois people power”.

Authentic people power finally rose up after the Edsa Dos sham: Edsa Tres showed its massive people muscle as the unshod, unwashed trooped to the Edsa Shrine to demand the restoration of their democratic will – but the guardians of the people, as the Constitution describes them, i.e. the armed forces were hoodwinked by a handful of corrupt generals led by Angelo Reyes and gunned down the swarm of Filipino poor protesting before the entire stretch of road in front of Malacañang’s Gate 7 (which is said to have been cemented shut now) killing at least 17 and leaving many unaccounted for.

The shock and violence at Edsa Tres and the fascism, obfuscation, deception, election cheating that followed in the years since has stunted the debate on the issues of Edsa Tres delaying the maturation of the popular or masa’s political awareness. Otherwise the nation’s poor would have consolidated its consciousness in step with the Latin America nations. FPJ’s candidacy in 2004 helped advance popular awareness of the ruling powers’ depravity, particularly the FPJ birth certificate forgery committed by the Jesuits’ and “civil society” protégé Ricardo Manapat.

Successive electoral and corruption scandals exposed by Edsa Tres force in the aftermath of FPJ’s death demolished Gloria’s credibility and legitimacy such that “civil society” had to dissociate itself from her in order to salvage their own credibility. FVR minions tried to set up their “leaders” to form coalitions against Gloria. The Black and White group emerged to divide the public’s attention and create new and oligarch-controlled anti-Gloria groups. Politicians claiming to be opposition have proposed “snap elections” without requiring a Comelec revamp (who’re they fooling?).

Edsa Dos forces pooh-poohed Edsa Tres as a fluke and Erap Estrada as a political “has been”. I faced off with California-“disbarred” lawyer Leonardo de Vera in 2001 on Bam Aquino’s morning TV program on Erap’s “political non-entity.”, that’s what they wanted to rub in; but today that obviously was wishful thinking. Some of us pledged never to allow the Edsa Dos lies to get away, and the more we fought the more evidence emerged to make the case of Edsa Tres: that Estrada’s removal was not only unconstitutional but that vile, evil, exploitative and profit-seeking forces were behind it.

The corporatocratic machinations were confirmed by the predatory laws like EPIRA and water privatization that ushered in exorbitant public utility rates, while Gloria’s corruption was allowed unabated so long as the Makati Business Club got its share of the looting. Poverty increased, and even the middle class suffered. Namfrel’s “trend setting” for Gloria’s cheating was eventually exposed, “Hello Garci” came and Abalos discredited, the fertilizer fund scandal exploded (as we exposed even in 2004), ad nausea.

Edsa Tres’ has been vindicated but it’s gains still is far from Latin American people power’s achievements. Three forces are now vying for the post-Gloria era: the CPP-NDF, Cory-Drilon, and the Estrada-Edsa Tres forces. Given the lessons of Latin America, it is the masses’ turn to triumph.

(Tune in M-W-F 6-7pm to 1098AM, T-Th 7:30-8:30am to 1242AM dwBL)