CORY SAYS PEOPLE POWER GOES BEYOND EDSA
MANILA, February 23, 2004 (STAR) The dwindling crowds in the yearly celebration of the original people power revolution merely reflect a cynicism and shallow understanding of the movement that ousted a dictator 18 years ago, former President Corazon Aquino said.In a speech before a young leaders conference in Tagaytay City earlier this month, Aquino, who was installed into power after the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos fled in February 1986, said that much more than a political tool, people power is "an ideology of hope."
"Going by the dwindling crowds during observances of the EDSA anniversary in the past couple of years, one would think that people power was gone. The cynics asked, where are the cheering crowds, the dancing in the streets by the champions of democracy?" she said in her speech titled "Paths of Leadership" published in yesterday’s Starweek magazine.
The 18th anniversary of EDSA I will be celebrated Wednesday, Feb. 25, which President Arroyo has declared a special non-working holiday. For the first time since 1986, the activities will not be centered on the historic highway, rather on sidestreets so as not to hinder traffic flow.
"But the cynics have a very shallow understanding of what people power really is," the widow of Sen. Benigno Aquino continued. "The ouster of the dictator in 1986 was only the beginning of our deliverance from justice and inequality."
She said that people power — or the concept of people empowerment — has since trickled down to the grassroots to help make people’s lives better, from job generation to delivery of basic services to improved peace and order.
Aquino said that people power lives on not on EDSA itself, "but in the nation’s communities where NGOs (non-government organizations) and people’s organizations are helping one another help themselves."
She noted how people power has become a political tool, as what happened in 1986 and 2001, when graft-tainted President Joseph Estrada was ousted. But, she said, it could also be used "by politicians, government workers and religious cults to further narrow and questionable agendas."
In the end, though, the former president said people power should be taken out of EDSA and brought to bear in our daily lives.
"Presidents will come and go but our people’s needs are constant. If the people are now empowered — economically, morally and politically — they will be condemned not only to being poor but to seeing bad presidents come and go for a long time to come," she said.
Aquino is not supporting any presidential candidate in the May election, but is spending time with the NGO community to ensure clean elections.
On Wednesday the People Power Commission will launch a volunteers’ fair for the May 10 polls, where election monitors, poll watchers, and volunteers of the National Citizens Movement for Free Elections will be tapped to ensure the process remains clean.
"I invite you to join me in this endeavor. Instead of wringing our hands in despair at the seeming hopelessness of the choices before us, I invite you to be People Power people and work to preserve the integrity of this important pillar of our democracy," she said.
Aquino said that even if all the signs pointed to a hotly contested elections complete with all the dirty tricks, voters should be reminded of their right to a clean and honest election process.
Reported by: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2003
by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
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