CEBU CITY — Do we glimpse the underground Radyo Bandido of People Power take cyberspace form in the Arab Revolutions of 2011?
“It was radio,” Fr James Reuter recalled in an Inquirer 25th People Power anniversary interview. That station came on the air after President Ferdinand Marcos’ men blew up Catholic station Radio Veritas.
“Information is democracy’s oxygen.”Anchored by June Keithley, Radyo Bandido became nerve center for reports on the “Yellow Revolution”. It played a linchpin role in toppling the 21-year old “New Society” dictatorship.
The 94-year-old Jesuit priest and Magsaysay awardee downplays his role in securing dzRJ and thereafter, hitchhiking on Veritas’ frequency of 840.
On ANC anchor Cheche Lazaro’s program, Keithley recalls Fr. Reuter moved her from the Philippine Federation of Catholic Broadcasters Office at Xavier House in Santa Ana, to Radyo Bandido.
“My assistants were Emer Guigon, Pablo Mercado, and Gabe Mercado, then 13 and 15,” Keithley recalled. Sister Sarah Manapol, who now oversees St Paul College in Quezon City, organized data from volunteers for broadcasts.
Radyo Bandido newscasts were monitored by people massed at Edsa, foreign journalists, 40 Catholic stations nationwide — and Marcos loyalists who threatened mayhem.
Today, protestors in Libya, Iran, Yemen, Bahrain to Alegria, and Morroco weild Facebook,Twitters and email. These 21st century tools emerged from EDSA One’s radio and EDSA Dos’ cellphones and fax.
Research on transmitting data, by Stanford University, Rand Corp. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led to breakthroughs in “packet switching”. By mid 1980s, the Net emerged, followed in the next decade by new generation tools: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
The explosive growth of near instant communication, on Internet, had a deep impact on culture, commerce — and Arab dictators. Here are two countries’ experiences, culled from an extensive Channel 4 survey :
LIBYA: In 41-years of one-man rule, Moammar Ghadaffi, clamped total control on media, notes Reporters Without Borders. But Internet vaulted these firewalls. Citizen journalists uploaded information and pictures Libyans fighting back, as Ghadaffi waged war on his own people.
“My name is freedom,” messaged @AliTweel on Twitter. “Born in Tunisia, raised in Egypt, studied in Yemen, fought in Libya, and I’ll grow up in the Arab world”.
Omar Amer adds: “There are no more ‘Chinese whispers’. Accurate information is spreading real-time,”He telephones people in Libya from London, and posts their information on Twitter.
Radyo Bandido played Mambo Magsaysay for its theme. Libyan bloggers use Twitter hashtag #Feb17 — the day when mercenaries gunned down 12 protestors.
The first issue of an uncensored newspaper Libya appeared. And the opposition turned two state radio stations against Ghadaffi (Filipino rebels took over Channel 4 on Feb. 24, and began broadcasts for People Power.)
Ghadaffi muzzled Internet, as did Egypt’s Mubarak, and Tunisia’s Ben Ali. But users resorted to proxy servers. They uploaded pictures of Libyan helicopter pilots who ordered to fire at demonstrators, defected instead. (Marcos ordered Col. Antonio Sotelo to lead the 15th Strike Wing based at Sangley Point to “neutralize helicopters in rebel-held Camp Crame. Sotelo and squadron chose to land at Camp Crame and defect, duly reported by Radyo Bandido.)
BAHRAIN:As in Egypt, Bahrainis use “live web streaming devices to broadcast images directly from the protests”. Ustream and Bambuser http://www.ustream.tv/ enabled youth to film live while shaking shoes at rulers. Twitter hashtag #Feb14 — the first Valentine day protest — became the identity of Bahrain’s alternative media.
The regime blocked websites where Facebook provided a platform for debate and mobilization. Clips of police storming the protest camp, in central Manama, appeared on YouTube. (Here, People Power erupted as Filipino communists quarreled, in safe houses, whether they’d join. They didn’t — and ended up as “history’s orphans”. They haven’t lived that one down.
Ghadfaffi blamed Al Qaeda for the revolt. Without exception, the revolts are not driven, in fact, not by bearded immans vowing jihads. They’re led by disaffected internet savvy and often disorganized youths. With their elders, they seek reforms and broader human freedoms. (Like Filipinos, they’ll find that disposing dictators is only a step in the tortuous transition to a more humane society.)
The Arab world reels from massive deficits in education, women rights, and freedom. UNDP’s Arab Human Development Report 2009, documents these obstacles, noted Viewpoint (PDI/Feb. 22).
“Per capita expenditure on education in Arab countries dropped from 20 percent of that in industrialized countries in 1980 to 10 percent in the mid-1990s. More than 60 million Arabs are illiterate. And Yemen could be the first country in the world to run out of water in 10 years.
“This Arab Revolution of 2011 had a scent for the geography of grief and cruelty,” writes Foaud Ajami of John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in the New York Times. Arabs acquiesced to despots, their national security states…and culture of tyranny, greased with oil money.
“There is no marker that marks with precision when the Arab people grew weary of dictators…This rebellion was an inevitable response to stagnation of Arab economies…and a desire to be cleansed of guilt for having given in to despots for so long.”
