I was fascinated by the complete divergence of the civilian and military responses to the Ateneo de Manila University study on EDSA People Power I. [Read story] The civilians saw it as the courageous massing of ordinary folk, which plucked the military rebels holed up in the military general headquarters Camp Aguinaldo and police general headquarters Camp Crame from certain doom. And which ended in Ferdinand Marcos being ousted and democracy being restored to this country.

The military group saw it otherwise. People Power I, they said, clearly showed that military intervention is needed to save democracy. People Power was just that, which failed when the civilians took over.

Both respondents cited the massing of huge numbers of people in the streets as the most important event of EDSA People Power I, but differed on the second most important. For the civilians, it was the assassination of Ninoy Aquino, while for the military group, it was the defection of Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos from Marcos. The civilians listed Corazon Aquino, Jaime Cardinal Sin, the religious groups and Fidel Ramos as having the most impact on EDSA, while the military group listed Ramos, Enrile and the RAM as having so.

The study was done by the psychology department and Institute of Philippine Culture of the Ateneo. Psychologist Cristina Montiel explains the findings thus: “Their story is linked to how people feel about their group self, and ‘that feeling and thinking about group self’ also shapes the kind of story that the group holds.”

The study might have been more interesting if it had brought in another group of respondents. That is the revolutionaries, or ex-revolutionaries, who fought Marcos—and the military—throughout the course of martial law. They might have added yet another perspective or story to it. The revolutionaries bear as well on EDSA People Power, and not just indirectly. They were the one force that changed American policy toward Marcos, altering their perception of him as part of the solution to the No. 1 recruiter of the New People’s Army. Enough for Paul Laxalt to tell him bluntly at crunch time, “Cut, and cut cleanly.”

In any case, a great deal of the folk that massed at the EDSA highway weren’t just “ordinary folk.” They were organized elements, people who were used to marches and demonstrations, who would not be cowed by tear gas and truncheon.

But I’m particularly curious about the concepts of success of failure of the respondents, particularly that of the military group. There wasn’t much explanation at least in our report on it. If the idea is that the civilians were just “miron,” or side players, and the military rebels would have succeeded without them, then clearly that isn’t true at all. Without the mass of people surrounding the camps and the horrendous implications of having dead bodies strewn around EDSA highway if Marcos—or Fabian Ver—were to shell the camps, not least for future American support, the rebels might have been pulverized. The massing of huge numbers of people at EDSA highway was the key event of EDSA People Power.

A lesson today’s Marcos has learned only too well, refusing as she does to allow any such gathering in any place, least of all the EDSA Shrine, for any extended period of time. The last time that happened was early this year during the height of the NBN scandal, but the gathering at Ayala wasn’t allowed to go on past early evening.

That is not to say that you do not need military intervention for the success of a project like EDSA People Power. The military came first in EDSA People Power I, they came second in EDSA People Power II. These days their importance looms even more critically when repeated demonstrations of public disgust with the regime can’t do the trick.

But that asks us to look more seriously at the meaning of success or failure. You do need military intervention as much as the civilian one to oust a government. That is not necessarily saving democracy. Those are two different things.

I suspect that the reason the military group is saying EDSA People Power I was a failure was not that it failed in ousting Marcos but that it failed in restoring democracy. That follows from their remonstrations from Day One that EDSA People Power merely brought back the “politicos” of old, whose greed and selfishness had made Marcos possible in the first place. That became the battle cry of the subsequent RAM uprisings against Cory Aquino: Death to politicos. If not phrased that baldly, variations thereof.

An arguable point, and one you can most sympathize with these days, given where the “trapos” [traditional politicos] have brought us. But it is a naïve one as well. At the very least, would the military have done better? (That’s where the activist or revolutionary point of view would have been most interesting.) Lest we forget, Enrile had been Marcos’ right-hand man throughout martial law, and it might be asked whether his defection had been the product of principle or expedience (Marcos preferred Ver to him later in the day). He did make a bid to succeed Marcos after EDSA People Power I, but was roundly rejected by everyone, including Ramos, who backed up Cory.

More to the point, look what happened when Enrile and Gringo Honasan, the two key military players in EDSA People Power I, decided to throw their hats into the political ring. They ended up more trapo than other trapos, or more politico than other politicos, to use their own term, propping up the most trapo or politico of them all, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Life produces the most ferocious ironies.

In the end the choice is a spurious one. Neither civilians in the form of trapos nor military officers in the form of rebels can save democracy, which is the true measure of success. Civilian supremacy remains the cardinal principle of democratic rule. The enlightened military may demand that that rule reflect public will, but it may not substitute for it. Military—and civilian—intervention is needed to oust a corrupt government.

Quite a bit more is needed to put a truly democratic one in its place.