No EDSA miracle

JUST LIKE Camelot. A brief shining moment. Mythic and magical, mystical and mystifying. But fleeting, ephemeral, momentary. But-once-and-never-again.
That sums up the EDSA Revolt.
No. The EDSA Revolt was not, and is not, the defining moment of the Filipino.
No matter the worldwide accolades the nation received for stopping tanks in their tracks with no more than flowers and prayers.
No matter the near-bloodless revolution that sent the Great Dictator fleeing like a sick, maddened mongrel.
No matter it being the pattern of peaceful upheavals from Prague to Berlin, from Bucharest to Beijing.
No. The EDSA Revolt was not a reflection of the Filipino character. It was more of an aberration. Constancy and consistency are basic character ingredients. The very antithesis to the very Filipino ningas cogon. Which EDSA is.
No. The EDSA Revolt was not a revolution. In the sophomoric verses of an aktibista:
“Wala. Walang himagsikan sa EDSA.
Kumaripas ng takbo, lahi ni Hudas,
Pumalit nama’y lipi ni Barabbas.
Ano ang nagbago? Mukha, hindi prinsipyo.
Adhika ng liderato, palawigin, pagyamanin ang status quo.
Burgis ang naghahari. Masa, alipin sa araw at gabi.
Wala. Walang himagsikan sa EDSA.”
Change is the essence of revolution. What socio-economic and political variance – from the Marcos mold – find significance in the post-EDSA Aquino and Ramos administrations?
In other countries, ousted dictators and their families are routinely assassinated and banished for decades. Only a few short years after EDSA, Bongbong Marcos was congressman, Imelda Marcos is congresswoman, Imee Marcos lords it over a film company.
Change? What change? The way things are now going, the threat of a Constitutional coup a-borning, EDSA’s hero Fidel Ramos is seemingly on track to do – and be – a Marcos.
No. The EDSA Revolt was no liberation. The poor did not remain poor. They became more, and poorer. The rich became fewer. And enormously richer. The great divide between the have-all and the have-none became even wider.
Liberation lifts the greatest number to a level of existence higher than their pre-revolution state. Post-EDSA state of the nation remains Third World average.
Outside the corporate boardrooms and Malacanang, what relevance does this so-called tiger economy hold? To the urban poor in the squatter colonies being bloodily demolished? To the rural folk yet to see a road connect their barrio to the poblacion? To the underpaid and overworked laborers in the sweatshops? To those poverty prodded to mortgage their souls and pawn their bodies in the sands of Saudi Arabia, in the flatsof Hong Kong and Singapore, in the karaokes of Japan, and the brothels of Greece and Cyprus?
No. EDSA is no miracle. Yes. EDSA is a mirage.

THEN THERE was EDSA Dos in January 2001. Further reinforcing the position in the above piece that came out in my Golpe de Sulat column in Sun-Star Clark, February 24, 1997. That there was neither a miracle nor a revolt, much less a liberation of the people at EDSA Uno.
Then there was EDSA Tres and the siege of Malacanang in May 2001.
Now we here again calls for people power to oust the Gloria Macapagal administration.
No, this could not be what Marxists call the “continuing revolution” or the “perpetual struggle.” That is taking it to the max.
Ours – from the time of Bonifacio – has always been an “unfinished revolution.” So when will we ever see our liberation?