http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MB25Ae02.html
Feb 25, 2011
Lessons in misguided people power
By Joel D Adriano
MANILA - The popular upheavals underway against dictatorships in the Middle
East and North Africa have evoked memories of the mass demonstrations in the
Philippines that gave birth to the term "people power" and changed the way in
which revolutions are staged around the world.
As the Philippines commemorates this week the 25th anniversary of its popular
revolt, there are important lessons for street protesters fighting for change
in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya.
On February 25, 1986, demonstrators overthrew the repressive regime of
president Ferdinand Marcos through sustained mass street protests. The
Philippines was just one among nearly 100 different countries that shifted from
authoritarianism towards more pluralism in the last quarter of the 20th
century, according to some academic estimates. But the long-term results of a
political transition determined in the streets rather than through legal
processes have been a decidedly mixed bag.
Unlike countries in the Middle East, the Philippines had the political
infrastructure in place to make the revolution work. The Philippines functioned
as a democracy prior to the implementation of martial law in 1972 and the
opposition was well-prepared to assume power in the revolution's wake. The
uprising also had a central figure to rally around in the late president
Corazon Aquino, whose senator husband was gunned down three years earlier by
government agents at Manila's international airport.
Aquino won snap elections in 1986 and the former housewife assumed power
smoothly after Marcos fled the country. That is, there was no power vacuum and
a civilian government took control despite the military's machinations during
the people-power protests that destabilized and ultimately toppled Marcos'
regime.
For the current people-power uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North
Africa, the democratic outcomes are less certain. In Tunisia, president Zine
el-Abidine Ben Ali resigned in disgrace and fled to Saudi Arabia on January 21
after weeks of protests that ended his 23 years of iron-fisted rule. Yet
members of his old cabinet, including prime minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, now
lead an interim government.
In Egypt, 18 days of street uprisings put an end to Hosni Mubarak's 30-year
authoritarian rule. But he relinquished power to the military, the institution
from which he rose, and there are now questions about how deeply the top brass
will allow democracy to take root and whether they will willingly hand power
over to an elected civilian government. The outcome of Libya's people-power
uprising and the future political role of the military is even less certain.
As witnessed in the Philippines, people power is only successful if the
military refuses to crack down. That's what happened recently in Tunisia and
Egypt, where each country's top brass finally agreed to sacrifice their
dictators and answered public demands for political change. How soldiers
negotiate their roles and privileges after the protests and during the
transition will largely determine each country's democratic future.
In the Philippines, the military leadership leveraged its post-Marcos
popularity into ballot-box gains. Several retired military officers became
senators and the military's growing political presence culminated in the
election to the presidency of former top soldier Fidel Ramos in 1992. Yet
despite the military's entry into mainstream politics, successive
democratically elected governments have weathered several failed coup attempts.
Twenty-five years after the original people power revolt, Philippine democracy
is still shallow and deeply flawed. While basic civil liberties have been
restored, many of the problems left behind by Marcos, including severe poverty,
rampant corruption and extreme economic inequality, have endured and even
worsened under democratic regimes. Abductions and murders of activists and
journalists, common occurrences in Marcos' martial law period, continue with
impunity today.
Some argue in retrospect that the Philippines moved too fast towards
reconciliation and too slow in exacting justice for past abuses. Efforts to
recover ill-gotten wealth and punish the sources of abuses during the Marcos
era eventually lost steam and were left largely unresolved. A quarter of a
century after the revolution, Marcos' victims have yet to receive full justice,
while those who bankrolled his abusive regime remain in privileged positions of
economic power.
The former dictator's son, Ferdinand "Bong Bong" Marcos Jr, is now an
increasingly influential congressman. He was recently quoted in the local press
saying that the country was better off during his father's period of martial
law, claiming the country had a better standing in terms of international
status, poverty rates and financial stability.
Knee-jerk reactions to the decades-long domination of a single political party
during the Marcos era saw the introduction of a multiparty system that has
ensured that no presidential candidate has been elected in an outright majority
since 1986. It also gave birth to a new political species, the so-called
political butterflies, which jump from one party to another depending on
patronage rather than political conviction or ideology. Constructed to avoid
the re-emergence of a Marcos-like dictator, the post-people power system has
paradoxically ensured that democracy remains weak and open to abuse.
New members to the people-power club in the Middle East and North Africa should
take heed of the Philippine experience. One unfortunate upshot of people power
here is a deep-seated impulse to take grievances, however marginal, to the
streets. That same tendency has provided cover for political power plays among
elites, as was seen in 2001 by the people power II ouster of democratically
elected president Joseph Estrada.
There are also geopolitics to consider. The current uprisings in the Middle
East threaten to undermine the US's position in the strategically important
region, as was the case in 1986 in the Philippines. With nationalistic
sentiment running high in the wake of the revolution, legislators were keen to
punish Washington for the substantial support it had previously provided to
Marcos' regime. That eventually led to the cancelation of the US's access to
key military facilities and a series of nationalistic policies that undermined
broadly the country's competitiveness vis-a-vis regional neighbors.
Nationalists and Islamic political groups in the Middle East will likely draw
parallels to the support the US has provided their fallen or shaken
dictatorships, particularly in Egypt. Thus the new political orders that arise
from people-power movements could prioritize diminishing Washington's role in
their respective countries and provide cover for a lurch towards more
nationalism.
If the Philippines' experience with a people power-led transition to democracy
is any guide, those same groups would be wise to emphasize keeping their
militaries out of politics and administering justice to those who suffered
under the outgoing authoritarian regimes.
Joel D Adriano is an independent consultant and award-winning freelance
journalist. He was a sub-editor for the business section of The Manila Times
and writes for ASEAN BizTimes, Safe Democracy and People's Tonight.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.
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