Noynoy Aquino's EDSA celebration speech lacks convincing power

President Aquino went ahead of his campaign against the Chief Justice. In his "papalag" speech yesterday during the commemoration of EDSA 1986, Noynoy Aquino tried to convince the people who attended to militate against the judiciary, describing this institution as one which needs "correction". Noynoy says the correction is needed immediately because the judiciary is heading towards a different path.

“Our country is now facing a crossroad. In one direction is the weedy path, where the influential holds the scales of justice and those who manipulate the law benefit,” Mr. Aquino said.
“In the other is the straight path where the rules are clear, justice favors no one and those who are at fault are made answerable. Let’s remember: Martial law happened because Filipinos kept silent for too long,” he said.
“As was said way before, ‘Kung hindi ka kikilos, sino pa? Kung hindi ngayon, kailan pa?’ Let us now move before it’s too late. Let us now move so that we can quickly leave behind the darkness in the past,” he said.

Noynoy's call-to-action is Bush-like--those who are not with us, are those who want to remain in the old system, while those who believe in what Noynoy wants are those who want nothing but change.

“If you want to remain in the old system, go ahead and pretend to be deaf. Pretend to be blind. Don’t speak. Don’t participate,” he said.“But if you believe that there’s something wrong in the system and that this has to be corrected, let’s go and push back (Tara, pumalag tayo). Let’s participate. Let’s make it right,” he added.

Let's discuss this. Is it true that if, say one does not agree on what Noynoy Aquino says, he does not want change? 

Will anything change when we change the composition of the judiciary? No. Everyone knows that even if we impeach the Chief Justice, there will still be graft and corruption until we really change and overhaul the entire system that breeds this scourge of a problem.

Chief Justice Corona is just a graphic manifestation of wrongs within the judiciary. His removal from office will only benefit those who oppose him, specifically Justice Antonio Carpio. Will Carpio bring the changes we so desire? No.

Carpio is an old-timer, a man who knows the "ins" and "outs" of the system. He has his personal desires why he wants to be Chief Justice. He is not clean. He even represented the previous administration, something which the people is so afraid of.

What Noynoy wants is change--from a Corona to a Carpio. Is this the change the Filipino People wants? No.

The People want nothing more than systemic change. This impeachment of Corona will not amount to anything but a musical chair thing--one is bumped out of the game, and the other sits in his place. 

We don't want a musical chair type of change. We want nothing less than true, radical change. 

What Noynoy is doing is trying to provoke the people to act and for that action to be his hammer against his political enemies.

What is happening right now is simply described as a struggle between one elite group against another. 

The group of the Aquinos want to "own" EDSA 1986 and think of it as a weapon against their enemies. 

EDSA 1986 is not a weapon of the elites. It is the other way around. 

The true EDSA 1986 was the weapon of the less in life, the refuge of the victims of injustice, the hammer of the workers and the peasants.

EDSA 1986 is not a property of the Aquino-Cojuangco clique. No.

This explains why Noynoy's call is not resonating with the masses. 

The masses are not fools. They have a term for this " Ayokong Magamit"

The Masses are tired of being used by these elites in their fight for power. 

If at all, a true EDSA waits in the wings, it will be an EDSA where the true representatives of the Filipino People will be serving them once more, treading the true path of struggle, and forsaking their individual freedoms and futures, for the sake of future generations.

The malevolent Spirit that is EDSA Uso as compared to EDSA Uno

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We are in a very dangerous situation now, where numerous forces who claimed to have engineered a phenomenon known as " EDSA" is again, out in our streets, trying to simulate the event that changed the entire direction of this country these past 26 years.


" EDSA", to the minds of these people, is a trademarked or copyrighted script for social change owned merely by those who already benefitted from it since it sparked some 26 years ago. 


" EDSA" to their minds, is manipulation. EDSA, to their minds can always be invoked, like a vile spirit from the deeps, if enough maliciousness is injected unto the minds of the middle class. For these people, there are only four (4) elements needed to spark an EDSA.


1. Enough funds to mobilize grassroots organisations (meaning funds to implement hatak)
2. Enough funds to initiate a reputational attack against a known public personality, manipulating the traditional media to accept these lies as gospel truth and blurring the entire political atmosphere.
3. Enough funds to convince a segment of the armed forces to side with them.
4. Enough funds to create mobilizations.


The problem with these people, and actually, they are not simply to be blamed, is the sworn belief that EDSA has a blueprint, that this blueprint can be replicated and re-used over and over again, like what happened in the so-called "EDSA dos", where some of these people claimed to have engineered.


EDSA dos, or what I called "EDSA Uso" is the direct opposite of the first EDSA simply  because it was an action taken against a legitimate Power---a Power whose mandate directly and overly came from the People.


EDSA uso was a pure coup---plain and simple. The crowds that were there were simply interested on getting their share of the loot once the plot has been achieved. When they failed to get their share, these groups immediately distanced themselves from the beneficiaries of the plot and these groups started militating against their former allies. 


The problem with this thing called "EDSA" comes from the misunderstanding that such a phenomenon can be morphed into something else or can be institutionalized. You simply cannot institutionalize something which came out of thin air. It is against its very nature. 


It also cannot be copyrighted. The Aquino regime claims to own EDSA as if the only color that came to these streets were yellow. 


The fundamental difference of the first EDSA with these copycats right now is the predominance of RED and the convergence of this color with yellow.


Conjuring a vile spirit such as EDSA uso right now is simply heretical, if not, absolutely foolish. 

EDSA 1: A shift from Dictatorship to a dictatorship of the Elite, masked as Liberal Demcracy

In his speech before students at the Rizal High school yesterday, President Benigno Aquino III said that EDSA uno allowed a shift from dictatorship to democracy. He said that EDSA 1 was different because unlike those bloody revolts over in the Middle East, God was standing by when Filipinos trooped to the streets and demanded change. The president said it was a miracle.


It was no miracle, though that the Marcoses found themselves in Hawaii, than in Paoay though. As revealed by former Justice secretary Raul Gonzales, the US disagreed with the request of the Marcoses to be flown to Paoay as exiles. Among the elites at that time, there was a request for Macoy to just live quietly in exile in his hometown, which, according to Gonzales, was turned down by the United States. 


It was also no miracle that yes, we found ourselves living in a liberal democracy than in a dictatorship. Noynoy said that it was not true that the Philippines could have turned into a "Singapore", referring to that small island state off the Pacific which turned from poor to the region's most prosperous, had Macoy continued his despotic rule. Aquino said the country was mired under billions of pesos worth of debt when Macoy left. The country, says Aquino, continues to pay off those fantabulous debts.


I don't know about this, but it seems that twenty five years hence, and we have more than US$ 7 trillion in debt, one hundred times over the billions during the Marcos regime.


Everyone know that Macoy was just a living corpse at that time, and it was just a matter of a couple of years more, and the dictator would have died silently in his sleep. Macoy was afflicted with lupus, a debilitating disease, and even without an EDSA revolt, the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy would have happened naturally.


Fact is, Macoy lifted Martial law four years prior to EDSA uno. When EDSA broke out, there was limited democratic space already. The age-ing regime allowed people to express themselves, albeit, in a limited manner. If democracy was not there, how come that Ninoy was able to return home?


Frankly, EDSA uno actually led to a transition---from a one-man rule to the dictatorship of the traditional elites, those elites whom Macoy tried to destroy in 1972. 


And frankly, these so-called "EDSA heroes" were active promoters of the New Society espoused by Marcos. The reason why they defected was simply to wrest power from Marcos, plain and simple. 


Admit it--former Marcos' defense secretary Juan Ponce-Enrile wanted nothing more than be declared Chief Executive. Enrile, together with other Marcos cronies, Eduardo Danding Cojuangco in particular, wanted nothing more than be declared Macoy's successor, which, during those times, was impossible since Macoy intended his wife, Meldy and his cousin, Ver, to rule the country after his death. 


Yes, the elections precipitated the revolt, but, like what former President Ramos said yesterday, the people's resentment has been festering since 1971, the year when students staged the First Quarter Storm. The gains of that historic event bore fruit only after two decades. 


1986 was just the right time for regime change, simply because Marcos was on the throes of death at that time. Had it been that Marcos was as strong as he was back then, the outcome would have been different.


The US saw this happening as early as 1983, when crowds began to swell during Ninoy's burial and the political opposition, composed of Marcos' enemies among the country's traditional elites, started flexing its muscles. The problem of succession began to be discussed silently among the elites, and this was never solved because the "strongman" was still very much recognized by the US as its puppet in the East. The US just realized the futility of still allowing the continued rule of Marcos simply because there was no clear succession policy and the one who Marcos intended to give his power to was a discredited political figure. 


Let us admit it--EDSA is like what Egypt underwent these past few days--from the dictatorship of Mubarak to a dictatorship of a few. We are being allowed to live in a neo-liberal environment to hide the fact that political power has just shifted---from the hands of Macoy and some of his cronies, to a dictatorship of the elite. 


We continually live in an elite-led democracy. We are allowed to exercise our rights provided that we allow the local caciques and their foreign backers, the right to rule us and gain tremendous profits from us. 


Truly, EDSA was never, really a revolution because a true one sees the former dispensation thrown away and replaced by a new set of pro-people adherents. EDSA was a peaceful transtion--from one-man rule to a rule of many. That explains why, before Marcos ended his career, several mediators were sent to Malacang purportedly to strike a deal with the discredited regime. 

Ninoy died for the Restoration of Rights

Mrs. Gloria Arroyo just freed the last remaining ten convicted killers of former Senator Ninoy Aquino. Learning about the incident, the former senator's daughter Kris Aquino just could'nt help but remind Arroyo and the public about the sacrifices made by her father who was gunned down several decades ago.

Lest we forget, Ninoy was one of the thousands who sacrificed their lives against the dictatorship. Despite earlier warnings, Ninoy pushed ahead of his plan to return here, only to be repulsed by an assassin's bullets. His body was shot at and brutally descecrated by the State's security forces. His death led to the EDSA Revolt after three years.

Ninoy's sacrifice was not in vain. He's now known as one of the heroes of the so-called EDSA Revolution, which restored the powers of the post-Martial law aristocracy and even created opportunities for the new oligarchs.

Yet, is there really a connection between the democratic legacy of Ninoy with that of the pardon and subsequent release of his convicted killers.

I hate to say this, but, there is no legal connection. There is but, an obvious moral connection, which I'll explain later on.

Based on the records, these Aquino-Galman murder convicts have already spent considerable time in jail. They are not sentenced to die either by electrocution nor by musketry. Their sentence was simply spend a life term in jail, which in our jurisdiction, means about 40 years in jail.

Yet, this 40 years also means that, if you already serve half of your jail term, you'll be amenable to parole or pardon. That is a right enshrined in the 1987 Constitution, the same charter which Ninoy's widow campaigned hard to be ratified. This right is also stated in our Civil and Penal Codes.

Kris reminded us that we (the people) must not forget the sacrifice made by her father. And the foremost legacy of his father is the restoration of rights, which, under a democracy, is the primary bedrock of its existence.

To deny her father's convicted killers of their rights to be pardoned goes against the very same principle which her father gave his life for.

Now, is it immoral for Mrs. Arroyo to release these convicts now, a few days after the celebration of EDSA Uno?

Yes.

This is what you call a lack of decency and virtue on the part of the pardoning power. It shows you how amateurish people in Malacanang are.

They could have done this post-facto, meaning, a few days or months before June 20, 2010. It could have been easier for the Aquinos and the rest of the Filipino People to accept this.

Timing was never considered.

Arroyo released the pardon papers a week after a mammoth rally calling for her resignation was held at the Ayala Avenue Makati City. Aquino was there at the rally, along with former president Erap Estrada.

As statesperson, Arroyo should have considered the possible political implications of such a move, given that civil society members were still aghast at what she did during the EDSA Uno celebrations.

We recognize Arroyo's penchant for deconstructing history. We all know that she's trying her best to erase whatever legacy or somber remembrance we had about those times.