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Published: February 28th 2008
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Welcome Rotunda
Even as it threatened to rain the group at the Welcome Rotunda grew bigger - thousands of people preparing to march through the streets of Manila demanding change. This was texted to a friend of mine today just after the rally:
A Filipino man dies and goes to heaven. Standing at the gates he sees many clocks, and so asks St. Peter what they are all for.
"Each clock represents a life," said St. Peter, "and evertime the person attached to the clock lies it moves."
"See here, this is Mother Theresa's clock, it never moved once. And here, this clock belongs to Abraham Lincoln, it only moved twice in his whole life."
"Where is Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's clock?" asked the old man.
"Oh, it's in Jesus's office. He is using it as a ceiling fan."
Today was the anniversary of EDSA I, the People Power portest that brought an end to the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986. February 25th is now a national holiday, and I have been told that every year there are commemoration celemonies at the EDSA memorial. This year, however, the festivities are a little different.
As I have been discovering through my exposures corruption and violence are not new elements of Filipino politics. Many regimes well before the Marcos and certainly since have used bribery and kick backs to gain
The Faces Will Always be What I Remeber
At every mobilization it is the people that fascinate me, the faces that touch me. The people come from so many different sectors, from so many different times in their lives. The middle class risk loosing the financial advantage they have in the status quo, the urban poor are missing work and loosing what sustenance they could have had for the day, everyone is risking attention from state security forces for their activism. And yet they are all happy to march. The sound of Filipino protest is music and laughter. and maintain power. And when money hasn't worked military repression has seemed to be the readily available second option for Filipino Presidents. This old school way of doing politics is constantly referenced as one of the biggest causes of poverty and oppression of the Filipino masses and is fought constantly by Pinoy activists. The country is once again under the shadow of a large scale corruption scandle that is conecting the Presidential Palace to multi-million dollar business pay-offs. The result has been waves of renewed protests, activists, church groups and individuals alike taking to the streets to demand the resignation of the President and the cleaning up of Filipino politics. There have been murmurs that the public discontent is running deep enough to possibly spur a third People Power Movement.
This year the EDSA I anniversary has fallen right in the middle of the public outcry for the President's resignation. As a result the day's biggest rally was not a memorial event to the first historical People Power, but a protest rally with the aim of pushing the idea of a third People Power uprising in the Philippines. There where reports all week leading up to the rally that
10 000 military personal where being moved into the city to "protect the protestors from any revolutionary elements trying to cause violence." The reality is that the military always shows up to rallies to protect the Administration, and the Administration alone. And today was no different. Groups of soldiers where placed strategically on cross roads between the Anti-GMA rally and the pro-Administration rally that was being staged at the EDSA Memorial. Having been denied the chance to go to the memorial, our march headed to Mendiola, intentionally not croassing paths with the military and so avoiding any violence. The decision to march to Mendiola was actually even more of a success because the group was permitted by the police to move all the way up to the edge of the historical protest space, something that the repressive GMA regime has not permitted in a long time. In the large intersection in front of Mendiola then the stage was set up and the groups spead out as we settled in for the afternoon to listen to songs, speeches and testamonials about EDSA I and about the problems facing the Filipino masses today.
I started my moring early at the Gabriela
Graffiti
Graffiti has been a pretty rare sight on my travels. There is always graffiti left along protest routes though. I love it. The art is usually pretty terrible, but the political messages are always clear. Coincidently GMA has the same mole as the creatures they sprawl across the infrastructure. office. They had pulled in everyone they could to do production work, preparing flags, placards, hats, fans and Oust-GMA signs. Everyone was hectic but the rooms where full of music and laughter above blaring news radio in Tagalog. From time to time I would hear English coming across the station, works like anti-administration and activists, and I knew they where talking about the upcoming rally. It was amazing to see how excited everyone was getting for something that, in all acounts, is extremely dangerous. The activists who go to these rallies are drawing attention to themselves and their organizations, attention that could result in police raids on their offices, intimidation or worse the killing or disaperances of their leaders. And yet preparing for the EDSA mobilization I saw people happier then I ever have in Manila. Maybe it is simply that the adrenaline is making them giddy, but I believe that these activists get so excited for rallies because it is an expression of power and strength by people who have so little power against the mass force of the government in their daily lives. Pulling together everythingwe had made that morning we piled as a group into Gabriela's jeepney
Reclaiming the Heroes
National heroes and national monuments are often used by corrupt and violent politicians as a legitimizing shield. At mobilizations, while their elders speak and their artists sing, the youth, angry at their lack of land, their lack of rights, their lack of possibilities, retake the heroes for the people. and set out for the Welcome Rotunda.
The rally began at the Rotunda, a traffick circle between Quezon City and Manila, and we marched as a mass down to Mendiola. As the women of Gabriela got out of our jeep we where greated by the roar of a crowd feeling the same excitement end empowerment we had been feeling in the office. Speeches where starting on the mobile stage, chants where filtering across the crowd and old friends from different activists groups where hollar their hellos across streets, around banners and through jeepney windows. It was nice to be one of those people who was running into old friends, and I was greeted and hugged by many of the people I had met on my exposures this past month and a half. Possibly out of solidarity, possibly out of protection, but the activists in Manila who come to rallies are a community, and they welcome each other to the old familiar spaces as if everyone is coming home. Overwhelmed by the sceen of groups amassing and positioning as we prepared to march I wandered through the crowd talking to friends and taking pictures. The effagies where more elaborate then any I had ever seen, and the slogans more snide and more direct then any we would ever have put on placards in Canada.
I becomes evident as the group starts to move just how serious the Filipino people are. The protest is blocks long, and even through drizzling rain the group's energy doesn't disipate. I begam marching with the PCPR, but since the route was lined with police decided instead to play the saffer role of filtering through the groups taking pictures. "Is she a tourist? Is she a foreign journalist?" Either way it lead to fewer questions about my presence in the rally today and will hopefully lead to fewer questions later this week when I try to renew my visa. But playing this role as me moved through the streets really allowed me to see all of the different groups involved, talk to many of the protestors and listen to their chants, their songs and their cries for justice. These people truely want a People Power Movement. Although this will be the third, and admittedly the last two have not really brought changes to the political and economic system in the Philippines, the people in the rally talked to me about having to stand up for their rights, about needing to let the government know that they had no immunity in the crimes they where committing against the Filipino people. I found myself surging forward with the protestors, thriving on their energy and their optimism.
None of us know what might come if Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is forced to resign in the next few weeks or months, none of us know how the system will be changed or if the people's demands for peace and justice will finally be met - but everyone in this crowd does know that change is needed in the Philippines and that taking to the streets to demand it is the only way that change will come.
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Corruption
I would say corruption is one of the major causes of poverty in the Philippines... The country is blessed with great resources, but why do they stay poor? The Philippines has a trickle up economy wherein the money of the poor goes to the rich, while the money of the rich stays with the rich. Corruption is very prevalent in this country. You can say that it is quite normal and given already. The government's and most of the official's priority and focus is on how they could corrupt more and have the country's wealth be placed in their own pockets. too bad.... they simply dont care about the poor... they simply care about themselves. http://vitzy.net/forum/Philippines-f55.html