CEBU CITY — Filipinos mark Sunday the 26th anniversary of toppling a dictator without bloodshed. That flower-in-the-gun-barrel model is refracted in Ghandi’s march to protest the Salt Tax in 1930 to Czechslovakia’s “Velvet Revolution” of 1988, and Tunisia ’s “Jasmine Revolt” last year.
People Power never offered a one-size-fits-all pattern. Uzbekistan‘s brutal suppression of demonstrators showed that. So does Syria’s unstaunched spilling of blood.
For 11 months now, Syrians staged “People Power” rallies after mosque prayers. They seek freedoms that Filipinos, since Edsa I, take for granted.
In response, President Bashar al-Assad sent his tanks in. Over 5,000 civilians have been killed.
“They call it the widows’ basement,” wrote Marie Colvin of London ’s Sunday Times, before a shell killed her Thursday, along with French photographer Remi Ochlik. “Over 300 huddle in this wood factory cellar.
“(One) is 20-year-old Noor who lost her husband and home to shells. Our house was hit by a rocket so 17 of us stay in one room,” she recalls, as daughter Mimi, 3, and son Mohamed 5, cling to her.
“We had nothing but sugar and water for two days, and my husband went to find food.” It was the last time she saw Maziad, 30, a mobile phone repairman “He was torn to pieces by a mortar shell.”
For Noor, it was a double tragedy. Adnan, her 27-year-old brother, was killed at Maziad’s side. Everyone in the cellar has a similar story of death.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,” US President John Kennedy warned in 1962. Fast forward to Russia and China ’s veto of an Arab League peacekeeper plan. That emboldened Assad to slaughter even more.
“Those who take by the sword will die by the sword.” Assad need not look far to see his future. Libya ’s Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya cowered in a gutter when he was shot to death. Bosnia’ Radovan Karadžic is detained Scheveningen, accused of war crimes.
In contrast, democratic space broadens, albeit jerkily, in a Burma where, only three years back, military tatmadaws smashed the peaceful “Saffron Revolution”.
Nobel Laureate Aung Saan Suu Kyi, with 651 political prisoners were released. Ceasefire agreements with ethnic minority rebels have been signed. Restrictions on campaigning were scrapped after National League for Democracy complained.
“Reforms leave many disorientated by the pace of change,” UK ’s Guardian noted. Crowds in Rangoon “clapped as they watched images of monks demonstrating, and police baton charges on a big outdoor screen …Incredible,” said a journalist. “Only months ago, (this) would have led to a lengthy prison sentence.”
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations agreed that Burma chair the regional body in 2014. Asean observers will monitor the April elections for 48 parliamentary seats.European Union and the US whittled down sanctions.
This schizophrenic internationalcontext is backdrop for a 26th Edsa anniversary debate if “People Power” would be hijacked. Why? To extricate, from impeachment’s bog, a Supreme Court chief justice who can not get his math right, whether on glitzy condos or Statements of Assets and Liabilities.
Justice Renato Corona’s defense counsel repeatedly threatens to end impeachment on grounds of mistrial.” Some 7,000 Iglesia ni Kristo demonstrators, waving identically-printed posters, rallied for a teary- Corona and wife.
INC says its Feb. 28 rally at Quirino Grandstand would be “a Bible exposition”. “We take their word for it,” Malacañang said. “Leaks” say otherwise. The pro-Corona INC would air “demands on the impeachment, foreshadowed in their dry run rally That’s speculation — for now.
An INK rally, cheek-by-jowl with Esda’s anniversary, differs from historical patterns. INC were “no-shows” at the two earlier People Power revolts since it backed Ferdinand Marcos and Joseph Estrada.
INC adherents make up 2.3 percent of the population, Philippine Demographic Profile 2012 shows. But that small base is parlayed into political clout by INC bloc voting. Between 68 and 84 percent of the members vote for candidates handpicked by INC leadership, ABS-CBN surveys reveal.
Impeachment trial chair Juan Ponce Enrile slammed the door on threats to abort impeachment on grounds of mistrial, noted Inquirer’s Amando Doronila. “He’d not allow a disruption that might lead to another People Power Revolution… The collapse of Estrada impeachment, in 2001, haunts everybody”…People watch if the impeachment court ends up in the streets…”
Decesion ponente? Justice Renato Corona.
