What killed EDSA?

 

By Christopher Ryan Maboloc, PhD 

In his most important work "Domination and Resistance," Dr. Jeffry Ocay explains the root cause of the problem when it comes to Philippine politics. The experience of powerlessness of the Filipino is not a self-inflicted wound. It was a result of the coercive apparatus of colonial rule. Division in society is ideal when foreign invaders desire to exploit the people. To implement such a scheme, the easiest way to do so is to give favors to local leaders who would willingly agree to become accomplices to the oppression. In our time, this translates to the patronage system being put in place by the powers-that-be. We complain about this system but there's no escaping that we are part of the problem. 

The truth of the matter is that we miss in a huge way the fact that we belong to one nation, and that if we do not correct the ills of elitism in this society, from every barangay to the nation-state, we will continue to sink as a basket case of democracy. The issue of impeachment is nothing more than a perpetuation of power on one hand, and retribution on the other. It is a political, not a moral question. The saga of President Rodrigo Duterte has not come to an end. The power dynamics in the country is centered around him. But this is because his enemies insist that the problem is rooted in his style and approach to governance. The real problem is that many Filipinos continue to suffer from economic and political exclusion. 

EDSA was supposed to change the lives of ordinary Filipinos. But it did not. President Corazon Aquino had the chance to alter the fate of the country but instead, what happened was a return of the old order. President Ferdinand Marcos put the country's economic machine in the hands of his cronies and gave himself absolute power. EDSA put an end to that. It gave people hope. It dismantled a dictatorship. It showed the world what the Filipino can do. It taught humanity people power. But more could have been done. Yet, back in the strangle of the elite, it did not live much to its promise of change. 

Nation-building is a fundamental question of values - the love of country and respect for each other. But those who promote the elite driven narrative of EDSA People Power only have themselves to blame. What they dream for the Filipino will remain utopian because no rich man will give his wealth to the poor. The failures of EDSA cannot be blamed on the Filipino but to an elite type of democracy that has continued to hold its grip on our people. An oligarchy that is perpetuated by high culture in the academe and elsewhere controls the fate of this country. We care about our basic liberties, but we have to examine ourselves and call out our obvious hypocrisy..

- Dr. Christopher Ryan Maboloc is the author of Radical Democracy in the Time of Duterte