Reflecting on Edsa

In the history of every modern-day democracy, the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution stands out as the most astonishing, not only because it removed without bloodshed a cruel dictator in Ferdinand Marcos, but also because, all intents and purposes taken together, it has at least healed the malignancy of the Filipino nation’s broken soul.

But the wound of disunity threatens us again. Three decades later, Filipinos are still wanting in terms of the things they deserve from their own government. Edsa should have taught us how to elect the right persons for public office. But across the many regions of the country, we can only agonize in disbelief as we witness overlords in absolute control of our beloved land.

It is wrong, however, to put the blame on the ordinary Filipino. The majority did not benefit from Edsa. In fact, whole families still roam our busy streets, scavenging for soiled food. While towering edifices rise in the metropolis, thousands of children have remained hungry and without a home. As a society left behind by the modernity of the Western way of life, we can only indict our leaders, past and present, who exploited Edsa and abused its spirit and memory. Indeed, we have many cunning politicians who shamelessly invoke the concept of human welfare, or even the pursuit of happiness, in order to justify and brandish their particular style of tyranny.

History tells us that an autocrat who rules by means of some populist agenda is not impaired as to his knowledge of the timeless relevance of the principles of justice. But he distorts and uses the same in order to advance his vested interests. In the desire to destroy his enemies, a dictator only has one marching order to his docile and willing accomplices: to follow him without question. This type of loyalty is perhaps the most dangerous there is. It is the same kind of blind obedience that has caused honorable men to kill in the name of their god!

When President Corazon Aquino came to power in 1986, we believed then that it is not really intellectual brilliance but human virtue that legitimizes political leadership. And yet, in reality, it is the dictator who actually foregoes the advice of academics, as he will do things as he sees fit. He is so afraid of the wisdom of old. He fears engaging the titans of history. Edmund Burke elaborates: “What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? … In this deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor.”

Edsa gave the world a new way of looking at things. We stand firm that, as a people, we cannot allow those who hold positions of power to take advantage of us. Any form of violent counterrevolution can only mean that oppression has been maintained, although the oppressors may have changed the color of their skin. Burke says it well: “Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general welfare; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense anything like servants.”

The raison d’être of Edsa is not Aquino or Marcos. Edsa is the story of the Filipino as a freedom-loving people. Burke appears precise: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.”

It is every generation’s principal right to overthrow any ruthless despot. Freedom, ultimately, is an instrument for societal transformation. Unless we prevent ourselves from degenerating into a country that treats justice and the rights of people as some sort of a commodity that only the affluent can enjoy, the potent force of the radical change that was Edsa will continue to elude us.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc is assistant professor of philosophy at Ateneo de Davao University. He has a master’s degree in applied ethics from Linkoping University in Sweden. He was trained in democracy and governance at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Bonn and Berlin, Germany.