Celebrate EDSA? With a Marcos comeback? Absurd
IF the Aquino loyalists celebrate the EDSA Revolution that occurred Feb. 22 to 25, 1986, it would be the most absurd of all. The dictator’s son and his cousin are in power, and, perhaps more importantly, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is proving to be much worse in running the Republic.
The duo is undertaking ruthless plans to remain in power even beyond 2028. The one that EDSA toppled 36 years ago has been replaced by his son.
Why celebrate EDSA? Take a deep look at it.
With the US’ massive propaganda apparatus — which wanted an event that would trigger peaceful revolutions against the puppet states in Eastern Europe of its archenemy, the USSR — we were brainwashed into believing it was, as a forever-yellow, forever naive writer put it, a “precious moment” in national pride.
It wasn’t. That’s a delusion. Then and now, we were pawns in the Great Game, then between the US and the USSR, now between the US and China.
I was convinced long ago of this during the 1989 coup attempt. Standing on the rooftop of the building of the Far Eastern Economic Review offices, I saw six Huey helicopters land on the US Embassy lawns, which then disgorged the biggest Marines I ever saw in my life, in full combat uniform, several with M72 rocket launchers, who got into battle-ready crouches.
Honasan
My initial thought: Have the Honasan putschists gotten the upper hand, and are now in Malacañang and on the way to the US Embassy to capture it? Honasan’s gang was seething with vengeance over their betrayal by the Americans. After prodding them to go on with their coup plot, the CIA tipped Malacañang that they were going to raid the Palace and capture the presidential family in the evening of Feb. 21.
That suspicion started to prove wrong when I saw four Phantom jets from the west, presumably from Clark Air Base, which implemented military leader Colin Powell’s brilliant idea — made after Corazon Aquino’s frantic calls to US President Bush to save her. The RAM colonels’ airplanes were bombing and strafing the Palace, and she was told that the rebels’ forces had positioned themselves in the exit roads from it.
Aquino begged Bush to bomb an airfield under rebel control, where their planes were refueling. Powell in his book “My American Journey,” however, claimed he did not support this proposal as it could unleash an anti-American backlash if any Filipino is killed in that attack. Instead, he proposed a different plan: “Have F-4 Phantom jets stationed at Clark Air Force Base buzz any T-28S daring to come onto the runway at the rebel-held airbase. In short, scare the hell out of them.”
“If any of these planes started to take off, fire in front of them. And if any took off, shoot them down. I concocted a phrase to include in the order to convey the desired sense of menace. Our aircraft were to demonstrate ‘extreme hostile intent’.”
“I turned to Admiral Hardisty and gave him the go order. … The F-4S were launched. They buzzed the airfield repeatedly, and no Filipino pilot took off to see what would happen next. … Within hours, the coup collapsed without our getting further involved and without the F-4S shooting up anybody or anything.”
More importantly, support for the coup — politically and militarily — collapsed with Filipino leaders at that time, of course wiser than now. A few days later, Powell wrote in his book: “General Abenina, a coup leader, said, ‘We were about to take over the government. Then the US warplanes appeared. We simply cannot hope to win against the stronger power of the United States Air Force’.”
It was actually the second time the US intervened to create the “EDSA Revolution.” The first was in Feb. 25, when Marcos was fooled by the US that it was still behind him, and offered — for his safety and to prevent violence — to escort him out of Malacañang so he could move to Paoay in Ilocos, where he could regroup his forces, and at the very least negotiate a power-sharing arrangement. He was brought against his will, however, to Hawaii, with the Yellows burying that reality with the joke that he thought all the while he was going to Paoay.
Few people know that none of Marcos’ service commanders had defected to the Honasan rebels, with their brigades still loyal to them, and therefore to Marcos. Only two generals supported the EDSA revolt — the vice chief of staff Fidel Ramos and his trusted general Renato de Villa.
If the US did not intervene, the Aquino government would have collapsed in 1989. The wily Juan Ponce Enrile, the godfather of the rebels, would have reconciled not only with the military leader Fidel Ramos (who had put his fate behind Cory and became his pillar) but with the Marcoses in order to strengthen his rule, together with the colonels. The EDSA People Power Revolution would have been forgotten.
But at any rate, did the EDSA Revolution change our country much? No.
Facts
Some hard facts to prove this. Our GDP per capita increased from the 2023 level of $3,804. But this is lower than the comparable-in-size Thailand’s $7,182. The war-ravaged Vietnam, whose 21-year war with the US-led North ended only in 1975, has a bigger GDP of $4,282, overtaking us in 2020. The tsunami of capital from China (which Presidents Aquino III and Marcos Jr. have quarreled with) into its economy will likely put its GDP per capita on par with Thailand.
Compared to Thailand and Vietnam — who had no awe-inspiring revolutions, as EDSA has been billed by the elites — we have the highest unemployment rate, the highest inflation, the lowest life expectancy and the highest extreme-poverty rates.
Using the poverty threshold of $3.65, 17 percent of our population are poor; for Thailand 1 percent, and Vietnam 4 percent. We have 2.2 million of our citizens slaving abroad. Thailand has only million, and Vietnam 600,000.
We have the worst inequality among the three countries, with our Gini index at 0.40, higher than Thailand’s 0.372 and Vietnam’s 0.361. Our economy after EDSA has been good though for the elites and the middle class, producing 16 billionaires, compared to Malaysia’s 17 billionaires, and Thailand’s 26.
Use
What’s the use of a nation’s “precious moment in national pride” if the poor have not benefited much from it?
The strong proof though that EDSA hasn’t changed the country much is the fact that the dictator’s son was elected to the highest post of the land, not because of his accomplishments nor perceived qualifications, but because of the Marcos name recall, the residue of the perception that the elder Marcos was a good leader, and maybe even the superstition that the father’s ghost lives in him.
Of course, Marcos Jr. would not have won if President Duterte had not supported him and if his daughter Sara had instead run for the post.
But still, they would not have supported him, and Filipinos would not have taken his word if the dictator was as bad as the Yellows had portrayed him. Or if EDSA really saved the country from ruin.
The tragedy of the “EDSA People Power Revolution” involves three inarguable facts. It merely reinstated elite rule, and the political system that maintains their power. It allowed the growth of insurgencies for three decades that have scared away investments. It demonized the kind of state-directed economic policy responsible for the growth of the “Dragon and Tiger” economies of Asia, and instead followed the US neo-liberal thinking that markets left alone would lead to growth. Vietnam’s amazing growth in the past decade is another reminder that we need state-directed industrial planning and, as important, the dismantling of elite rule.
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*I wrote about this in my column “How the US saved Cory’s neck in 1989,” Dec. 21, 2016.
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Celebrate EDSA? With a Marcos comeback? Absurd
Source: Breaking News PH
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