GMA: PEOPLE POWER BECAME DIVISIVE / CORY'S WRITINGS ON 'PEOPLE POWER'

GMA: PEOPLE POWER BECAME DIVISIVE / CORY'S THOUGHTS ON 'PEOPLE POWER'

MANILA, FEBRUARY 23, 2010 (STAR) By Jaime Laude (The Philippine Star) Updated February 23, 2010 12:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines - President Arroyo, whose rise to power was triggered by a popular and peaceful uprising in 2001, said people power has assumed a “partisan meaning” and become divisive.

“The Philippines has come a long way since 1986. We regained our freedom, our national pride and our will to get the country growing. Somewhere along the way, we became complacent. People power gained a partisan meaning which started to divide the nation once again,” she said in a statement read by Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales during the EDSA People Power 24th anniversary rites at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Mrs. Arroyo did not attend the anniversary rites.

EDSA People Power began on Feb.22, 1986 and ended on Feb.25 when then dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his family fled to Hawaii on a US aircraft.

President Corazon Aquino assumed the leadership with Marcos’ ouster.

The event was traditionally celebrated on Feb. 25.

“We have to be jolted into mass action once again to realize that sustaining our growth and freedoms meant constant vigilance not only to defend our human rights but also to protect our right to good governance,” she declared.

She said that after EDSA I, the country became weak because of ineptitude and corruption.

“A dysfunctional government resulted in insufficient investments in healthcare, in education, even in the basic amenities such as clean water and electricity to remote barangays,” she said apparently referring to the administration of deposed President Joseph Estrada.

She said the political instability eventually triggered EDSA II which propelled her to the presidency.

“I did not seek the Office of the President, it was thrust upon me,” she said in her speech.

“A few years ago, I declared that one of my goals was to heal the wounds of EDSA. I believe that we have achieved this to some extent. Most of those who used violence to express their opposition have had a change of heart and are now working with the government to fast-track our growth,” she said.

“The few who have vowed to fight the constitutional authority are now seeking their own place in our political system, placing themselves under the rules of the Constitution they used to undermine,” she said.

“EDSA I is a testament to the courage of the ordinary people who trooped to the stretch of the highway in 1986. It is a tribute to the soldiers of 1986 who recognized that true power came from the people and not form the barrel of a gun. It is also the guide to the Filipino soldiers of today who make great sacrifices to defend the freedoms of the ordinary Filipino,” she said.

She EDSA II was a fine-tuning of EDSA-1 and that both had been embraced by the world.

“In February 1986, Filipinos taught the world how to be free again. Today, almost a quarter century after that glorious revolution, we join some of the main players in celebrating the bloodless revolution that has inspired many peoples all over the world to stand up for their own freedom,” she said.

“It was said that civilians did not stand a chance against the dispersal to be done by loyalist troops. But when that was set to happen, the Filipino soldiers took the side of the ordinary people who gathered to collectively assert their right to free thought and free speech,” she added.

“Recognizing civilian supremacy, the soldier stood beside the ordinary man, and we all joined hands as Filipinos reaffirming our commitment to freedom and democracy.”

After assuming the presidency, she said she started focusing like a “laser beam” on delivering results to improve the lives of ordinary Filipinos.

As an economist, she said knew that to reverse years of economic decline, she had to instill fiscal discipline, grow the economy and invest in human and physical infrastructure.

Under her more than nine years as president, she said her government has established a nationwide transportation system that binds the nation together for the first time and the Filipinos are no longer isolated from one another.

Show of force

The Liberal Party said it will have a show of force on Thursday, Feb.25, the culmination of the three-day revolt that ousted the Marcos regime.

“That is the idea of people power. We want to demonstrate it,” LP standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III said.

Aquino said the rally would be at the Araneta Coliseum at the Araneta Center in Cubao, Quezon City.

Aquino said he personally “feels a sense of pride and achievement” during anniversary celebrations of the Edsa revolution because of the role his family, especially his parents, played in helping the country regain democracy.

At a rally in Marilao, Bulacan, Aquino said the first Edsa should remind his rivals he was not just an inheritor of a good name of the country’s two democracy icons – his late mother and father.

“Given my experience, I should know how it is to be oppressed and thus the desire to change the situation,” Aquino said.

Aquino said no one could lecture him about life’s difficulties and claim that he could not understand what the poor and the oppressed were experiencing being the son of a privileged parents.

He related that he was only 12 when his father was arrested and jailed when martial law was declared in 1972 and then visited him at Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija at age 13.

He was 16 when his father was sentenced death by musketry and Aquino said at that time, “I felt the absence of justice” but was helpless to do anything.

At 23, he said his family came back to the Philippines from exile in the United States to bury their father who was assassinated and at 27, he was wounded in an ambush during one of the coup attempts against his mother.

Aquino said the people must take the coming election as an opportunity to change the system and not be lazy and just “wait for the guava to fall.”

He said then President Ferdinand Marcos wished to stay in power forever and he said many chose to fight Marcos as communist insurgents but in the end the people themselves toppled the dictatorship.

He said President Arroyo now seemed to be no different as corruption was so prevalent.

“Are we going to stand up and change the system or just let it be?” he asked the crowd.

“And once God tells me, finish or not finish pass your paper, I can look (at my parents eyes), I will be looking up, not down to be hit on the head, but proud to tell them that I fought, continued their fight and finished it through the help of the people,” Aquino said.

“Let us tell (our opponents and the administration) that we will no longer allow them to rob us of our future, to rob us of our hope. We are here together, hand in hand, to bring Noynoy to Malacanang,” Sen. Manuel Roxas II. Aquino’s running mate, said.

Meanwhile, Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, said he will attend, for the first time tomorrow an Arroyo government-sponsored celebration of EDSA 1.

Binay, running mate of former President Joseph Estrada under the banner of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino-United Opposition (PMP-UNO), said he has accepted the invitation of the organizers and would be joining former President Fidel V. Ramos, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and other prominent EDSA veterans. He said his attendance doesn’t mean he is reconciling with Mrs. Arroyo..

“Before we can have reconciliation, we must first have justice. I am thankful for the invitation, but we should always remember that the 1986 EDSA Revolution was about the struggle against tyranny, oppression and corruption. It’s a struggle that is far from over,” Binay said.

Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr. for his part, Jr. urged city residents to rekindle the spirit of EDSA by working to eradicate social ills.

“Let us continue to remember that the EDSA revolution had served as model for people power movements across the world, especially in Poland and the Soviet Union,” he said. Aurea Calica, Jose Rodel Clapano and Reinir Padua

Cory's thoughts on people power By Corazon C. Aquino (The Philippine Star) Updated February 22, 2010 12:00 AM

Photo is loading... Mrs. Aquino’s article, written exclusively for The STAR, marks the first time the former president has penned her own account of the 1986 people power revolution. The story appeared on The STAR’s Feb. 21, 2009 issue.

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MANILA, Philippines - On Feb. 21, 1986, I was informed by Lt. Bodet Honrado that there were rumors of a coup that week-end. He tried to discourage me from flying to Cebu, where I was scheduled to address a rally in connection with my campaign to boycott all products owned by Marcos and Marcos cronies. I argued with him that all preparations for my Cebu rally had been finalized. Besides, I had been hearing about those coup rumors for some time and no way was I going to announce a sudden cancellation and lose the support of my Cebuano supporters.

As it happened, a faction of the military revolted against Marcos in a failed coup attempt. Around three hundred rebel soldiers retreated to the Ministry of Defense led by Juan Ponce Enrile, barricading themselves, waiting for an attack by the Marcos forces. General Fidel Ramos joined the rebellion and called on his men to switch sides and defend the PC camp. Then His Eminence, Jaime Cardinal Sin made an appeal via Radio Veritas for the people to go to EDSA to form a human barricade. For the first time in history, civilians protected the military and the police.

It was Bel Olivares Cunanan who first informed me about the failed coup attempt. When I told my brother Peping Cojuangco about it he made arrangements for me to talk with Johnny Ponce Enrile. I did get to talk to Johnny soon after I told him that all I could do for him at that time was to pray. He said that needed a lot of prayers.

I spent the night in the Carmelite Convent with my daughter Kris, my brother Peping and my good friends Nancy and Tony Cuenco. I believed we would be safest with the Carmelites. And sure enough, when the nuns welcomed us to their convent, they said: "Cory, they will have to kill us first before they get to you." Kris and I stayed in one room while Nancy was in the next room, Peping and Tony were assigned to different quarters.

I was able to sleep for about two or three hours. Then we had breakfast with our fellow opposition leaders, like Monching Mitra and Sonny Osmeña. The men were suggesting different places for me to go to, but I told them I wanted to go back to Manila as soon as possible. After a press conference where I issued an appeal for more people to go to EDSA, Peping made arrangements for our return trip to Manila. I can only surmise that the people manning the Cebu Tower did not inform the Manila Tower that I was on board that plane.

In fact, as we rode in our tinted vehicle from the airport to my sister Josephine Reyes' house in Wack Wack subdivision, a few tanks were also going in the same direction and took no notice of us. It was only a vehicle with CNN personnel who followed us all the way to my sister's house and whose coverage was seen by some friends in Clark who had access to CNN news.

I visited Cardinal Sin shortly after my arrival and I also met with Doy Laurel. We had Mass in my sister's house and the next day, February 24, I met with the opposition leaders namely, Senators Tañada, Salonga, Diokno, Rodrigo and others like Rene Saguisag, Neptali Gonzales, Joker Arroyo and Ramon del Rosario joined us in the meeting. Joker and Ramon had both come from EDSA and they were informing us that my name was hardly being mentioned and the people inside. Camp Aguinaldo and Camp Crame kept shouting the names of Enrile and Ramos. So all of my political advisers were decided that I should take my oath of office as soon as possible. Rene Saguisag was tasked to prepare my oath of office and someone else was assigned to ask Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee if he would be willing to administer the oath of office to me.

We had planned to have the oath taking on the afternoon on February 24. I had also announced on Radio Veritas that I would be on EDSA in the afternoon of February 24 as I continued to appeal for more people to keep on coming to EDSA. My brother Peping tried to discourage me from going to EDSA because of the enormous security problem, but I told him I had already asked people to go to EDSA and that I would be there. With the help of his friends Peping found a relatively safe place in the POEA building and there were many priests and scholastics who stood in the front rows. I asked the people to join me in the singing of the "AMA NAMIN" and I gave a very brief speech thanking the people for being on EDSA and telling them that this was the first time in history that civilians were asked to defend the military. Teddy Montelibano was one of the few journalists who managed to be there and his article made it in a Hongkong newspaper. There were some nuns or priests who were able to take photos and I am still hoping someone will send me a copy.

We decided to postpone the oath taking for February 25, because there was still much to be done and we didn't want to do it in the afternoon, because of possible additional security problems.

So on the evening of the 24th I slept in my sister Terry Lopa's house and went to my own house on Times Street in the morning of February 25 were I met with Jimmy Ongpin with his son, Apa, Father Bernas and a general. Father Bernas told me that the general was asking him if I could change the venue from Club Filipino to Camp Crame or Camp Aguinaldo. It seemed that some of the military were wondering if I were still not trusting them. I told Father Bernas that since I am a civilian it had to be in a civilian venue and Club Filipino had been very special to me and the other opposition leaders because we held so many of our meetings there. Aside from that Doy Laurel had also informed me that he had his men secure Club Filipino and they were all waiting for me.

Just as I was preparing to get dressed to go to Club Filipino we heard gun shots and then Noynoy who had gone out of our house to investigate came back to report that a firefight had started at the channel 9 television station a little over a block away.

When the shooting stopped I went to my room to take a quick shower and put on my yellow dress and off we proceeded to Club Filipino.

While I was scheduled to take my oath of office at 10 o'clock we were only able to do so that 11 o'clock. And after my short inaugural speech, my children and I drove away accompanied by Jojo Binay who helped remove the road blocks on EDSA near Guadalupe Bridge so we could go to the Manila Memorial Park. My children and I prayed at the tomb of Ninoy and I entrusted my self to the Good Lord not really knowing what was going to happen to me and my children.

It was only in the evening when Ambassador Step Bosworth called me to inform me that Marcos and his family had already left Malacañang and would be flown to Clark. Marcos had asked if he could go to Paoay and I asked Bosworth if Marcos were dying. When Bosworth said no but that Marcos was feeling very weak, I said okay he can rest in Clark for the evening but that he had to leave very early in the morning and fly to Guam and then to Hawaii.

Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi

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