by Steffi De Chavez

In the four walls of our classrooms and in the pages of our textbooks, we are taught about the EDSA People Power Revolution. It is discussed to us how, on the 25th of February every year, we honor and remember the individuals who took part in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship in the name of the country’s freedom.

September 21, 1972 marks the date of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ proclamation of martial law. Broadcasted in different mediums across the country, his declaration brought about one of the bloodiest and darkest times in Philippine history. Fourteen years later, from February 22, 1986 until February 25, 1986, nations would see millions of Filipinos flocking to the streets of EDSA, many of whom were mobilized by national democratic forces that had taken the lead in forwarding the struggle of the Filipino masses. Parallel to the uprising in Metro Manila, large protests also erupted in public places and provincial capitals as more Filipinos expressed their resistance to the Marcos regime  After four days, the people’s uprising was able to topple the dictatorship and reclaim democracy.

However, even after more than three decades and a half since the uprising, many Filipinos remain sure of one thing: the injustices present during the Marcos regime continue to plague and ravage Philippine society as we know it. The People Power Revolution’s effects and influences, most notably seen in various uprisings in other countries like the June Struggle and Asian Financial Crisis, also remain prominent and significant, especially as the 2022 national elections inch closer. As we commemorate People Power, we remember there are lessons that we are meant to learn outside the constraints of a classroom, and checklists we must tick as we move forward into our future in order to attain genuine democracy.

To gain a deeper understanding of these lessons, Hi-Lites spoke to various youth leaders from national democratic mass organizations and researchers on their experiences and insights on the EDSA revolution. Sharing their thoughts and opinions are: Mika Libanan, Propaganda head of the League of Filipino Students – National; Moira Alfonso, chair of Kabataan Partylist Katipunan – Senior High School; Kiara Tan, chair of Gabriela Youth Katipunan; Sofia Añasco, vice chair of Gabriela Youth Katipunan; and Mr. Sonny Africa, the executive director of IBON foundation. 

Looking back: Beyond the four walls

As part of the K-12 curriculum, basic education institutions are required to teach their students about Philippine history: from what transpired during martial law, to what caused people’s uprisings like the First Quarter Storm in 1970, which ultimately led to large masses of Filipinos gathering for the People Power Revolution. Still, it must be kept in mind that there are many lessons that can only be learned beyond the four walls of the classroom.

The most significant lesson Filipinos have learned from the People Power Revolution, Sonny says, is that mass movements indeed have the power to effect massive positive change: “when Filipinos take it in their hands to undertake a direct act of democracy, you can literally change the government.” 

Nevertheless, it is important to take note of the following points:

1. EDSA didn’t happen overnight.

It took fourteen years before Marcos was removed from power. In the early years of this timeframe—and even before it—various marginalized groups had already begun to organize themselves against the inhumane forces of the government. “Farmers started organizing against oppressive landlords, [and] the urban poor started organizing against the dictatorship,” eventually going all the way to the middle class and elite,” Sonny explained. 

He also emphasized that the People Power Revolution would not have happened and would not have been successful if not for those who waged armed struggle against state security forces. Throughout Marcos’ fascist regime, members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People’s Army (NPA), and National Democratic Front (NDF), among other revolutionary groups, were consistently on the frontlines of resistance, suffering heinous human rights abuses like forced disappearances, abductions, and extrajudicial killings as an unjust consequence of their defiance.

The armed struggle inspired and empowered many individuals to fight back against the dictatorship, sparking a series of protests that culminated in millions of Filipinos marching side by side in the streets of Manila and beyond. 

“People come together to win, but [change] doesn’t come overnight. You have to spend years and years and great personal sacrifice to do that”, Sonny says. 

2. The fight is never over.

The struggle does not end in overthrowing a dictator or regime. It is something that cannot be completely erased by the elections either. In the end, the struggle lies in abolishing the conditions and systems that enabled the creation of a dictator to begin with.  

“Getting rid of a dictator is one step to finding a more democratic, more fundamental, more radical change,” Sonny says. However, he stresses, it is not the last step in achieving real democracy. In fact, it is just the very beginning.

Moira shares his sentiments: “The fight is never over…the cause, which is always [present], should always be fought for.” 

Kiara, Mika, and Moira also shared other lessons that Filipinos have learned thirty-six years after the Marcos dictatorship was overthrown. 

3. Political consciousness goes hand-in-hand with social conscience.

“Being aware of [the injustices in society] is not just enough, […] [we] need to actually be actively involved in what happens after,” Kiara says, underscoring the necessary connection between political awareness and political participation. 

While many may know of the atrocities—from illegal abductions to mass murders—that Marcos committed when he occupied the highest seat of power in the country, some choose to overlook them, Kiara says. “Technically, [Filipinos] still [have] consciousness na Marcos [committed these atrocities],” she adds, “it just so happened that their level of understanding doesn’t allow them to comprehend that these things are not just nation-changing, but they do leave a dent in our history and [are] something that should not be repeated again.”

Mika also suggests that economic conditions play a big part behind many Filipinos’ decision to turn a blind eye to Marcos’ affronts to democracy. “Supporting Marcos got them benefits, and people need that,” she says, “[so] at the same time, you can’t blame them for [being willfully ignorant].”

4. Not all sectors had the same experience during martial law.

In some cases, elders—especially those coming from places of privilege—would claim that martial law was the “golden age” of the country because of the favorable treatment they had received. But while the 1% of Philippine society was basking in power alongside the Marcoses, the 99% was left to be exploited and subjugated. “‘Yung mga farmers… were deprived of their land, activists and progressives… were killed in prison, or even tortured,” Moira says, detailing the gruesome abuse the ordinary Filipino people were subjected to under Marcos’ authoritarian regime. 

They note that people’s experiences under the regime are not “[a] one-size-fits-all [situation],” stressing that the fact that everyone’s recollection of the era is colored by their socioeconomic status is a lesson we should pick up, especially when engaging in discussions with others.

And while the Filipino people have already absorbed a great deal of ideas and values from the People Power Revolution, there remains to be a number of lessons we have yet to learn on a deeper level.

5. The systems that existed during martial law are still the same systems that exist today.

While we were able to oust a dictator and remove him from his position, it cannot be denied that the systems in place during the oppressive time of martial law continue to persist in the present day. “[These] same systems still have the same roots: ‘yung pagiging semi-feudal [ng Pilipinas], semi-colonial niya, [..]. ‘yung IPBK [imperyalismo, pyudalismo, burukrata-kapitalismo],” Kiara says.

The country’s semi-colonial character is determined by U.S. imperialism: while the Philippines is considered a free nation on paper, the systems within it, from economy, to politics, to foreign relations, are all controlled by the U.S., paving the way for many grave injustices to be done unto the 99%, most especially the country’s ordinary workers.

The Philippines’ semi-feudal character, meanwhile, is “principally determined by the impingement of U.S. monopoly capitalism on the old feudal mode of production and subordination of the latter to the former,” writes Jose Ma. Sison, the author of Philippine Society and Revolution. Under this character, large multinational corporations force the peasantry into poverty, restricting the growth of national capitalism. For instance, as this kind of mechanism persists side-by-side with capitalist farming, the harvest of farmers is exclusively for export for the United States and other capitalist countries. 

And under bureaucrat capitalism, the different administrations remain self-serving. Moira gives an example of this, saying, “Let’s say we’re able to choose the right candidate,” they start, “However, even if we do have the right person who is leading us, since the government was created under the semi-feudal and semi-colonial system, [the government] is always bound… to harm the people.”

The reality of governance in the country, they say, is that our leaders “also have leaders”, no matter how competent or right for the country they might be, Moira says. “These leaders may also have imperialists behind them because of the current system in the government; these leaders may also have big bourgeoisie compradors who are backing them; which, inherently, is harmful to the people,” they add.

It is important to realize that, although we may have elected the right and competent leaders, there’s still so much more we could do and so much more we must go against. There are still countless big-time oligarchs, tycoons, businesses, and other corporations that are in favor of operating under self-serving, anti-poor policies. 

But we must understand that these systems still exist because we are programmed to tolerate them and operate under them. For this very reason, we must recognize that it is not the masses’ fault that they are being manipulated and deceived by those in power: “Hindi kasalanan [ng masa] na they were put under this system and they’re just cogs in it,” Kiara says.

A few of Marcos Sr.’s cronies from martial law include the late Danding Cojuangco, former chairman and CEO of San Miguel Corporation; Roberto Benedicto, who essentially monopolized the sugar industry and controlled international trade; Antonio Floirendo, who took control of one of the biggest banana plantations in the world and abused those working under him; the Tantoco family, founders of Rustan’s; Jose Y. Campos, the founder of UNILAB; Lucio Tan, owner of Philippine Airlines and Fortune Tobacco Corp., among many others. Today, we still see these tycoons and their families thrive and dominate the Philippine economy.

As we continue to operate under a semi-feudal and semi-colonial system that tends to the wants of bureaucrat capitalists in our current government, the abuse and exploitation of the 99% will never stop. The government remains self-serving and ultimately neglects, and even steps on, the masses’ needs. For instance, the legislation of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law only made ordinary workers’ wages much lower than they already were; while, under the Anti-Terrorism Law, our basic freedoms are suppressed, with human rights defenders and activists getting red-tagged and killed for fighting alongside the masses. 

6. Activists and progressives are significant in contributing to mass movements.

In today’s society, the government paints activists in a bad light, with our own president serving as one of their worst detractors—constantly maligning them in his addresses, and even issuing Executive Order (E.O.) No. 70. The E.O. established the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), a group notorious for mercilessly red-tagging activists in a time where being linked to communism could very well be a death sentence.

“Because of the propaganda that’s always been disseminated by the government that attempts to relate legal progressive organizations or legal progressives to communists… [the legal progressives] seem as if they are the enemies when, in reality, sila ‘yung mga teammates natin,” Moira explains. They add that we should see progressives as allies and learn from what they know.

Beyond this, we must move towards change alongside activists, Sofie says, mentioning that the People Power Revolution was “historic in its manner of mobilizing various people across different sectors to oppose and oust the tyrannical rule of the Marcos regime.”

7. Our economy needs fixing.

Given the myriad issues plaguing our government, we Filipinos are generally used to the notion that we must change our politics. But even as we kickstart uprisings, petitions, and political reform, we neglect to keep in mind that we must also change our economy, Sonny says: “While there’s an automatic realization that our politics needs fixing, there’s much less of a realization that our economy needs fixing.” 

Fixing that economy depends on fixing our politics, he adds, because our economy is shaped by government policies: “The government sets the parameters where public businesses work—these parameters determine how workers, how farmers, how every economic actor behaves.”

Once people start to embrace the fact that our economy needs changing, there will be two different outcomes. “[First,] we envision a different kind of economy,” Sonny says, “hindi market-oriented, hindi profit-oriented.” Under this kind of thinking, we start to imagine a country in which everyone’s basic needs and fundamental rights—from simple things like food, water, and shelter to proper wages being given—are sustained and provided. 

“The second key insight unleashed by seeing that the economy needs fixing is that our politicians have to embrace that as well,” he continues, underscoring the role our officials play in changing the economy and lives of many Filipinos. “If we look back at the last thirty-six years since EDSA… one thing should be clear: across different kinds of political dispensations, the economy has stayed the same.”

Throughout the past six administrations, very little has changed about the country’s economy, Sonny says, adding that it may have gotten even worse: “It’s inequitable, it’s backward, the majority of people are poor.” Moreover, he discusses how the elite controls the economy and uses it to control politics. “The fact that we have every presidential candidate scrambling for support from tycoons, oligarchs, [and] the biggest business [exposes] what kind of economics [politicians] have.”

If leaders are not able to embrace pro-people economics by seeing that the economy needs changing, they are embracing the status quo that directly benefits the elite. This kind of thinking is harmful for the masses in the long run as their basic needs will not be sustained nor provided: “Kaya kahit magpalit-palit [ang mga administrasyon], ang unchanging is the backward, inequitable, environmentally-destructive issue we have.”

8. No government that has existed in the Philippines has been fully for the Filipino people.

“We should remind ourselves that every president we’ve had has taken part in the exploitation of Filipinos,” Kiara says, adding that she thinks we have never had a government that truly catered to the needs of the masses.

“Aside from this,” she continues, “[politicians] also seek foreign interest, and very heavy rin sila with the reliance on the military and the PNP.” This is especially evident in the current Duterte administration, as he continues to pursue good relations with China at the cost of our sovereignty in the West Philippine Sea. Moreover, amid the pandemic, his administration has employed a militaristic rather than science-based approach to the health crisis, constantly resorting to imposing lockdowns implemented by state forces rather than listening to calls for free mass testing and better healthcare facilities.

This is a lesson that people should keep in mind, especially with the coming 2022 national elections. “The next elections do define or decide how the country is going to be in the next six years,” Kiara says, “but, at the same time, they’re not the end-all-be-all of democracy since the same foundations [and] same systems [would still be] in place… it’s just that we’re going to decide how tolerable [these systems and foundations] are going to be in the next six years.

The elections are not the solution; they are merely the beginning of how we are able to achieve true democracy in the Philippines. “The solution has to be more significant than the elections,” Mika adds, “we really have to change the system that’s been ingrained after countless years.”

EDSA: mass movement or revolutionary movement?

The EDSA People Power is an uprising known for the absence of blood shed among its protesters in the four days where the masses marched alongside each other in the streets, bearing prayers and rosaries. 

Lately, there has been discourse on whether or not the EDSA revolution was actually a revolution, given that it was “incomplete,” among many other descriptions. “It’s considered a mass movement and it was respectable, but it was not a good representation of [what a revolution actually is],” Mika says.

Throughout history, we see that revolutions are armed and will entail violence and bloodshed among the people. And though armed fronts use violent means, Mika adds, their response to attacks from the military forces can be considered as self-defense [because] “what they fight for is to get back the land of the farmers [and the like]”. Likewise, Sofie says that a revolution entails the utilization of armed forces as a means to overthrow governments and systemic problems. 

Similarly, Sonny says his definition of a revolution involves “radical, society-wide changes [made] in economic structures [and] political structures that also come from a long period of daily struggles to reach that point.” He stresses that “doesn’t think that there’s ever been any revolution na naging spontaneous,” simply due to the fact that they do not happen overnight. In order for a revolution to happen, there must also be decades of mass struggle. 

“If the EDSA People Power Revolution] was a revolution, we wouldn’t have this economic digression over the past thirty-six years, we wouldn’t [have] a populist, demogorgonic Duterte winning the last elections, we wouldn’t be at the thresholds of putting the Marcoses back in Malacañang in 2022 if it was a revolution,” he says. Poverty, inequality, injustice, and the agricultural industry’s backwardness would also cease to exist if EDSA were actually a revolution.

Nevertheless, while People Power didn’t cause revolutionary change, it still brought about a “revolutionary flow” that allows us to continue fighting for the struggles of basic sectors and marginalized communities, he adds. “The People Power Revolution] was not enough to revolutionize Philippine society, but that’s not a failure because you’re still on that trajectory of [a] revolution…The real success is na-sustain yung revolutionary flow [ng EDSA] through the decades and…may speed bumps along the way, but we’re still moving forward.

Moving forward: 

Even after thirty-six years, the impact and history that the EDSA People Power Revolution left on our lives, may it be directly or indirectly, remains undeniable. Now that we know of the different lessons, failures, events, and key players that laid the foundation for this mass movement to happen: what comes next?

Kiara, Mika, Moira, and Sofie all agree on one thing: we must continue to arouse, organize, and mobilize the Filipino people. Through this, we may be able to achieve consciousness across all sectors of society.  “Yung first step is to organize these people into NDMOs… [they] do fight for the struggles of the masses, and doon talaga ako namulat mismo,” shares Kiara as she recounts her personal experiences. “Doon ako nakahanap ng political consciousness.” 

“Kailangan nating  ipagpatuloy ‘yung ating role, which is to arouse, organize, and mobilize since […] it’s hard to re-educate or change the contents of textbook[s] to be less biased and more humanly,” Mika adds, emphasizing the youth’s role in bringing about positive, radical changes in the country.

Quoting Rizal’s famous adage, “Ang kabataan ay ang pag-asa ng bayan”, Sofie stresses that the youth must take it upon themselves to stimulate change for ourselves and our successors. “As members of the youth, we must take part in the struggle and stand in solidarity with marginalized sectors,” she says.

Moreover, Moira wants the Filipino people to realize the significance of the revolutionary movement through education. As the elections draw closer, more and more are starting to actively engage in their civic duties. “During the elections or whenever the election comes, members of the youth become more active socially. So, I feel like we could use this active-ness to encourage the youth to… contribute to the cause.”

Sonny also encourages us to engage with individuals not only on an intellectual level, but also on a personal level, wherein we will be able to convince them that things can be better for the country and Philippine society. “Helping them with their economic struggles… their political struggles, [and] not be[ing] mechanical or instrumentalist about it,” he mentions, are some ways in which  people would be able to start adapting a progressive mindset: one that is more inclusive and people-centric.

As we keep these sentiments in mind, perhaps one day, we will be able to achieve true democracy within the country. For now, we, the Filipino people, must accomplish to-dos and checklists that entail painstaking years of dedication and sacrifice.

You can reach the featured NDMOs through the following links:

• Kabataan Partylist Katipunan – Senior High School: https://www.facebook.com/KPLKatipunanSHS
• Gabriela Youth Katipunan: https://www.facebook.com/gabyouthkatip 
• League of Filipino Students – National: https://www.facebook.com/elepsPH