“The public response has been zero.”
There seems to be a brewing effort to stage another EDSA. It all started last week when a small group identifying themselves as VP Sara Duterte supporters started to congregate at the EDSA shrine, the site of the two successful revolts in 1986 and 2001. The intention appears to gather people there hoping that it will gather enough momentum to reach a number reminiscent of EDSA 1 and 2.
Then there were reports that these people were being paid P500 each, which was promptly denied by the Duterte camp.
The most recent news about this effort was a Facebook account purportedly coming from the PDP-Laban faction supporting the Duterte clan, urging everyone to go to the EDSA shrine to show their displeasure with the many failures of the Marcos administration. Up to this time however, the public response has been zero.
There are quite a number of reasons why this is so. One is that a revolutionary situation cannot just pop out from thin air for any group to mount an extra-judicial takeover of the political instrumentalities of the government. The level of public dissatisfaction must be much more than the level of satisfaction. There must also be a trigger mechanism which at this time does not exist.
This is the reason why PBBM’s trust and approval ratings have gone up since he took office and VP Sara Duterte’s have gone down. In addition, there is a failure on the part of the people strategizing for the Duterte camp to correctly analyze and interpret how the two successful peaceful people power revolts developed and successfully mounted. Furthermore, the metro area is not exactly the stronghold of the Duterte camp and if there is going to be any government takeover, it has to happen here because the metro area is the seat of government.
In EDSA 1, it took years before the discontented segments of the public and that of the military coalesced to mount a concerted effort to topple the government during those fateful days in February 1986. Before that, the discontented segment of the military was not able to do anything because there was no support coming from the public. Another reason was that the bigger portion of the military remained loyal to the administration at that time. But when the late Jaime Cardinal Sin called on the public to support the group of the Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the then Chief of Constabulary Fidel V Ramos who broke away from the late President Marcos, this triggered the successful EDSA revolt.
In EDSA 2, it was the public that could not do anything because the AFP and the PNP for a time stood by former President Joseph Estrada. The trigger was when the AFP Chief of Staff Angelo Reyes broke away from Estrada, bringing along with him several field commanders. In the PNP, those in the upper echelon were the ones who abandoned their Chief and joined the rebellion.
In both EDSA 1 and 2, the rebellions were successful because both the military and civilian groups were willing to set aside their ideological differences in order to replace the current administration. It is for this reason that some do not consider the two EDSA revolts true revolutions.
One lesson learned from our two successful people power revolts is that one group cannot do it alone. The military cannot do it alone and neither can the civilians. This is the reason why even if former President Rodrigo Duterte called on the AFP to topple President Bongbong Marcos, nothing happened. Yes, the Constitution says that the military is the defender of the country but it also mandates the military and police to take orders from the democratically elected government officials led by their Commander in Chief, the President.
Fortunately also for our country, our military and police don’t have the same military ethos that the Thai and Burmese military establishments practice. Our military and police do not crave political power. And if those people who want another EDSA still persist, why don’t they just go ahead and do it, as presidential legal adviser Juan Ponce Enrile challenged them to do. Let’s see what happens.
