Edsa belongs to the people, the people who had faith in a very simple optimism. That is unseating the Marcoses was all the way out. Yes, Edsa successfully got rid of the dictator, but it was only short-term. It had no intellectual complexity. It was a chance move: brought the whole country to fumble – as some carpetbaggers made use of Edsa to retrieve what they had lost or to achieve what they failed to realise. For one, it is easy to bamboozle millions of people than just a group of people especially when these people do not have clear goals but only to end something in this country.
Yes, Edsa destroyed dictatorship, yet it has re-energised the system of oligarchy. It brought back media hegemony and everything that the dictator tried to abolish. It helped the oligarchs to breathe new life into the new government – the government that can be duplicitous and treacherous: it seems to solicit votes from the people, yet it doesn’t really mean to serve the interest of the majority. It wants to privatise everything that it has from universities to hospitals. In short, Edsa has paved the way to our hardship and poverty because during the Marcos regime, only they played on our resources but after the Edsa, more voracious and venal politicians came to make the most of our wealth and possessions for their advantage.
It was a revolution without direction because what it did was to pass on the country to several scoundrels, who seem to be good at play-acting. Thus, this country if you have noticed has the majority of the people who have become more hard-up and just a few have become extremely wealthy. Edsa has made some royalties: made millions flunkies and drudges.
Edsa is a big solecism. It was a consequence of antagonising the Marcoses for a mercenary intention by some people. It was a way of disregarding obedience because these people did not like equality amongst all Filipinos. Thus now many government offices do not have their own buildings but lease buildings from oligarchs. Ludicrous: it affronts the candour and resourcefulness of the government. It is an oligarch-serving action.
The thoughtless revolution made corruption pervasive. It was a knife-key tackle: dispatched the dictatorship and undid the door of untruthfulness and manipulation. It has made a government unresponsive to the poor as later government corporations were sold to rich people. Millions of Filipinos have been economic exiles, though political exiles came home.
So now Edsa means utopia for the oligarchs: averts inequality and gradually carves up the government to be privatised and denationalised – and, alas, corporatised at some point.
This country will celebrate Edsa so long as the power is not truly passed on to the people. So long as the people of this country do not understand what Edsa is. So long as the people have not realised the perfidy of antagonising the Marcoses and intention not to unshackle the country from despotism and poverty, Edsa will be called to mind and exaggerated.
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