Dueling rallies
As this is being written, two major competing rallies—let’s use the simplistic tags “pro-Edsa” and “pro-Duterte”—have yet to get off the ground. As is the media’s wont, the two rallies will probably be pitted against each other in terms of the number of supporters and attendees, as if the size of the gatherings were the sole determinant of the correctness of the cause that compelled them to gather in the first place.
Just the other day, the official state-sponsored observance of the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolt, under the auspices of the Edsa People Power Commission, took place in Camp Aguinaldo. It was a tepid affair, indeed, which may have been the intent all along of the organizers. Though there was media coverage, the overall reaction of the public was an overwhelming ho-hum. This may be what a leader like Rodrigo Duterte and others before him wish the Edsa commemoration would be treated from now—as a nonevent.
Another leader, former president and now congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, even deliberately timed the Edsa remembrance with the arrest of hundreds of protesters gathered on that historic stretch of highway. If we think about it, the protest dramatized precisely what Edsa was all about—a people free to gather and air their sentiments in a spirit of democracy. But GMA chose to mark the occasion instead with a demonstration of her mailed fist, hauling the protesters to Camp Karingal.
Among them was activist and Inquirer columnist Randy David, and when his wife Karina visited him with a tall pile of books to read during his incarceration, David asked her: “Why, how long do you think I’ll be detained here?” Fortunately, David had but a brief stay to mark his “celebration” of Edsa.
Ignoring the occasion, even the protest rallies, seems to be the attitude and approach favored by the Duterte administration. This, even as supporters gather at the Luneta, organized, it is said, by independent groups even as the Department of Interior and Local Government issued a memorandum calling on local executives to send “delegations” to the park. Apparently, they hope to gather enough adherents for an overwhelming “show of force” to illustrate the overwhelming support of the majority of Filipinos.
As I write this, I don’t know if the counterrally in front of the People Power monument on the corner of Edsa and White Plains would be able to muster enough numbers to match the Luneta gathering. Groups of millennials, who last showed the power of their numbers in the protests following the burial of Ferdinand Marcos’ remains in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, have issued calls for young people to show up once again.
Will the unfinished dream and thwarted vision of Edsa draw them once more to prove their love of country?
In the wake of Sen. Leila de Lima’s arrest and detention, a lot of people have aired their views that what happened to her is simply the senator’s “karma,” a fate that she deserved after taking part in the arrest and detention of former political leaders, not least former president GMA.
Granting that De Lima—and other justice secretaries before her—is only paying for past sins, we still must ask: But is it right? Does one more wrong—legally infirm, personally motivated, rushed and based on tainted testimony—make everything else right?
What cause does the prosecution of De Lima serve? The convicted drug lords clearly had nothing to lose by airing their testimonies—testimonies that contradicted each other, we might add—and if ever, they clearly had axes to grind against the senator. De Lima may have used legal shortcuts in the prosecution of political enemies, but are trumped-up drug charges the right response to her “karmic” debt?
If we shrug off De Lima’s fate, saying she should have expected it given the enemies she made during the P-Noy administration, then what sort of defense can we, ordinary Filipinos, expect when the forces of the state come after us? The call of the times, the call of the occasion we observed yesterday, is that human rights are rights for all. We close our eyes to injustice, and we risk losing all our rights as well.
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