True People Power

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
2/10/2006



There is people power and there is People Power. What Cory Aquino continues to refer as her people power is done by other people, as the following news item from the EIR News Service reveals:

“WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 2 (EIRNS) -- A LEADING AMERICAN SOUTHEAST ASIA SCHOLAR ADMITTED THAT PAUL WOLFOWITZ AND GEORGE SHULTZ RAN THE COUP AGAINST PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT FERDINAND MARCOS IN 1986. Theodore Friend, who has authored many books on Southeast Asia, and was once President of Swarthmore College, spoke in Washington releasing his new book on Indonesia and the Philippines. In his presentation, he admitted to his participation in the U.S.-run "regime change" against Marcos

“ -- Prof. Friend explained that after his friend Ninoy Aquino, a leading opposition figure to Marcos, was killed in 1983, Assistant Secretary of State Paul Wolfowitz, called Friend and five other scholars of the Philippines to Washington, and consulted them on what to do about Marcos. ‘Four of us,’ said Prof. Friend, ‘concluded that Marcos was vulnerable -- the other two resisted. We didn't use the term “regime change” at that time, but we decided that if we unleashed indigenous forces, Marcos could be brought down, and we pointed ourselves in that direction.

“With George Shultz as Secretary of State, we did it just right, timing the intervention so as to make things happen." The EIR correspondent asked the Professor if, “in reflecting on the nationalist development programs of Marcos, and the economic basket-case in the Philippines ever since his overthrow, if he didn't sometimes think that he and Wolfowitz had made a terrible mistake … Friend nervously tried to defend the subversion, only to be cut off by the event's sponsor from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, …But too late -- the truth was out... “

This report comes after a Wolfowitz speech at the time of the start of the Iraq War in 2003 justifying the attack and “regime change”, comparing the removal of Saddam to his own involvement in the “regime change” against the “dictator” Marcos. Wolfowtiz was deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in Indonesia at that time. The hand of Washington in the 1986 “revolution” resulted in a “regressive” revolution, that is the reversal of decades of build up towards an independent economy (Marcos attempted the 11-industrial projects) and a sovereign nation-state.

The “indigenous forces” of Friend talks are the Ayala-supported ATOM (who were funded and given free gasoline in all the Shell gas stations), Cardinal Sin who led the Catholic Church down to ruin, FVR who catered to every whim of the foreign IPPs and the Carlyle bunch, and the Metro-Manila middle classes who sincerely believed Edsa I was really their hard fought achievement. This is not to belittle the middle class effort, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating – and we have tasted bitter economic hardship from the policies that Edsa I instituted.

The question of people power came up in one meeting of anti-GMA forces coordinating for the February 22 to 25 activities. Someone proposed calling the activities Edsa I Celebrations, which I politely questioned. Although I was in the first batch that marched from Isetann, Cubao to Crame with Butz Aquino I now am a “revisionist” about the event. Surprisingly, several others agreed that using “Edsa I” may muddle the historical facts. A majority supported using the term “People Power Pa Rin” saying that it is still valid if its true essence is upheld.

Now that Edsa I and factions of Edsa II are one with Edsa Tres forces maybe true “People Power” with capital letters is a genuine possibility. Someone added that maybe the series of actions should come under the banner of “People Power Pa Rin” to face off with Gloria Arroyo’s pooh-poohing of people power and saying it is no longer a possibility. Some worried that to invoke people power would require the huge turnout of people already, while others said it is just the beginning of the revival of the call for “tunay” (true) People Power.

Genuine People Power should be understood, like that of Venezuela Hugo Chavez re-installed as the president after a coup; Evo Morales won as Bolivia’s president on people power, and the governments of Saa, Duhalde and Krishner were installed after mass rallies deposed Washington’s Fernando de la Rua’s neo-liberal government. Genuine people power differ from the Washington funded “flower revolutions” in Serbia, Georgia and Ukraine where these submit to Western “reforms” liberalizing their economies while the former address the popular demands for economic democracy.

If genuine People Power is to grow then Edsa I and Tres should unite under an common enlightened national consciousness, and every Filipino must be disabused of the myths of “people power’ led by elites instead of those led by the broad population’s aspirations and leaders. Edsa I was middle class led, Edsa Tres was mass based outpouring for the only genuinely elected leder, President Estrada. If the two Edsa constituencies come together on the basis of lessons learned then genuine of “tunay na” People Power can emerge.

Edsa Dos was pure opportunism, not even Gloria, even feigns to find any redeeming value in it today. To the dustbin of history it should, just like its sumbol Gloria.

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