Part 1
As many had expected, the 32nd anniversary of the so-called February 1986 Edsa Revolution, which installed Corazon Cojuangco Aquino to the presidency, was hardly celebrated. Only a handful of people opposed to the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte were seen at the so-called Edsa shrines—one at the corner of Edsa and Ortigas Avenue and the other at the corner of Edsa and White Plains Avenue. If there were any pro-Aquino groups which celebrated the occasion at those locations, they were hardly noticeable.
Two of the principal players of that event, namely, Aquino and her favorite friar, Jaime Cardinal Sin, the highly politicized archbishop of Manila, have long passed away. The others—former President Fidel Ramos (who was the constabulary chief under his cousin, President Ferdinand Marcos) and ex-Senator Juan Ponce Enrile (who was defense minister likewise under Marcos) are still around. Only Ramos was seen in the affair.
Truth to tell, the so-called 1986 Edsa Revolution has become meaningless to almost everyone in the country, particularly on the youth. For many, the event is nothing more than another marker in the long history of the nation, and no amount of television propaganda to the contrary can change that.
One reason the 1986 EDSA event has become meaningless is that Aquino’s regime is historically viewed as nothing better than the authoritarian administration of President Marcos it had replaced. Worse, the Aquino regime portrayed itself as an honest and benevolent administration when its actions and policies revealed otherwise. Adding to the horror and dissatisfaction was the fact that it was an incompetent administration.
For starters, Aquino did not carry out the promises she made during the political campaign.
Take the case of organized gambling. While campaigning in January 1986, candidate Aquino promised to ban gambling casinos in the country because they promote vice and discourage industry among Filipinos. As president, however, Aquino did the opposite∏—she expanded casino operations all over the archipelago.
Land reform is also in point. Candidate Aquino promised to institute a national comprehensive agrarian reform program, ostensibly to uplift the plight of farmers and plantation workers all over the country. Although Aquino’s lapdog Congress eventually enacted an agrarian reform program, Hacienda Luisita—her family’s vast sugar estate in Tarlac—was, to all intents and purposes, exempted. It would take several administrations and Supreme Court rulings decades later for the hacienda to be actually subjected to land reform.
In December 1985, and upon the urging of President Marcos, the Batasang Pambansa enacted a law calling for a special election for president and vice president in February 1986. Soon thereafter, Salvador “Doy” Laurel, the leader of the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO)—acknowledged by the Commission on Elections as the dominant political opposition party of the period—launched his campaign to challenge Marcos for the presidency.
Upon the instigation, however, of opposition figures marginalized by the UNIDO like Joaquin Roces, Lorenzo Tañada and Jose Diokno, Aquino announced her intention to run for the presidency. That meant a three-way fight for Malacañang, with the votes for the political opposition divided.
Unification talks between the Laurel and Aquino camps quickly ensued. After Aquino assured Laurel that her only objective is to unseat Marcos, she promised to Laurel that she would resign the presidency after holding it for two years. Withal, Laurel agreed to run for vice president with Aquino as UNIDO standard bearer. Upon Laurel’s instructions, the entire UNIDO political campaign machinery nationwide was mobilized to support Aquino’s presidential bid.
However, after seizing power in the aftermath of the February 1986 Edsa uprising, relatives and friends of Mrs. Aquino began dominating the political scene. Although Laurel was vice president and foreign affairs secretary, Aquino’s new oligarchs saw Laurel as a threat and a limitation to their newly-acquired political power and influence. Soon enough, Aquino began treating Laurel as an outsider in the corridors of power.
The first step in neutralizing Laurel was for Aquino to declare a revolutionary government. In doing so, Aquino gave herself the power to abolish the 1973 Constitution (which was then in force)—which she did. By abolishing the charter, Aquino concentrated in herself both the executive and the legislative powers of the government—no different from how President Marcos ran the nation from 1972 until 1986.
Obviously, the abolition of the 1973 Constitution carried with it the abolition of the Batasang Pambansa. The abolition of the Batasang Pambansa meant that all the assemblymen under Laurel’s UNIDO found themselves devoid of power. With Laurel himself out of the corridors of power, the UNIDO assemblymen soon aligned themselves with Aquino. Almost overnight, Aquino destroyed Laurel’s political power base.
To add insult to injury, Aquino abolished the office of the prime minister soon after appointing Laurel to it.
When Laurel finally asked Aquino about her promise to eventually hand over political power to him, Aquino flatly told Laurel that “the revolution erased all her political pledges.” That forced Laurel to join the ranks of the political opposition anew.
It was a difficult decision for Laurel to turn against Aquino. After all, Laurel had a big role in President Marcos’ ouster from power. Laurel openly aligned himself with Ninoy Aquino (Mrs. Aquino’s husband) during the darkest years of martial law—when many Filipinos avoided being associated with the Aquino family. Almost single-handedly, Laurel organized the hopelessly fragmented political opposition in the country under the banner of the UNIDO. Most importantly, Laurel was the childhood friend, bosom buddy and fraternity brother of Ninoy Aquino.
Prior to her leaving office, Aquino had one more blow to deliver to Laurel when the latter ran for president in 1992. Aquino supported the presidential run of Fidel Ramos, her own husband’s jailer during the martial law period. Her all-out support for Ramos ensured the defeat of Laurel, the statesman whom she conveniently forgot gave way to her in the February 1986 elections. To be continued
