Seventh of a series

THIS week marks the 38th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. For a time, EDSA was celebrated yearly on a grand scale, commemorating the end of a dictatorship and restoring the aspirations of the Filipinos for a better life. Expectations have faded since, and so have the celebrations. Cory and FVR, two Philippine presidents, products of EDSA and keepers of its flame, are long gone, except for one major player, the elder Marcos' Defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile, who turned a century old this month, whom many suspect cannot die — just like the biblical wandering Jew. In the intervening years, as is wont in history, perspective changes.

Decades back, I wrote about the 1986 events to lock down my own memories while still fresh, anticipating that as history is dynamic and in flux, views constantly change contingent upon where one sits. And more sinister, the protagonists, particularly those who were booted out, will somehow manufacture fresh perspectives alien to the events of those days. And it is understandable, as the interpretations of events are written by the victors. The paradox over the years is necessarily centered on who the victors and the vanquished are. Today, the latter is ascendant and has attempted to reinterpret the meaning of the 1986 events.

Looking back, many of us, fed by our egos, deemed ourselves major participants in great events. But looking through the prism of history, we were simply bystanders, a level higher than those known as "usiseros" and "miron."

EPPC 1986

I reprint excerpts of my experience and thoughts on those days:

"I was not at EDSA. There was no EDSA in Davao City. But I was part of the decades-long political struggle that eventually brought about the upheaval during those heady four days in February 1986, now known worldwide as the EDSA People Power Revolution.

"This is not a tome or even an attempt at a thesis examining the actual events leading toward the culmination of decades of a seething political cauldron. This is a simple recounting from personal memory to answer an age-old conundrum '...where were you when it happened.' Perhaps this is also a way of situating one's role in the great episodes of the times. We hanker to be part of the momentous movements of history and even begin to presume that we may indeed have been a major participant thereof — when, in fact, we simply may have taken on a minor role — bit players in an unfolding drama on the world's stage. But it is this trifling part, when multiplied by the thousands that makes the involvement of each of us anywhere within the stream of events singularly significant. In this way, our collective action becomes history-making. We need not have been at EDSA — we were the spirit of EDSA."

Cory was gifted by the Filipino a revolutionary government, and the euphoric citizenry bestowed upon her powers that could have corrected the inequities of the past. Instead, she denied this gift to bring back her own cherished concept of democracy, the old status quo ante, oblivious to the fact that prior to the martial law regime, our concepts of democracy imposed by our American colonials were dysfunctional. But Cory, a headstrong housewife, was a captive of her class, born of the elite and the entitled. Politically naïve, she had to impose upon the country a system congruent to Western concepts outlandish to the culture and Filipino political dynamics.

Local governments and OICs

She succumbed to the demands of America, the standard mantra for a universal election to legitimize her government when the power structures up to the local level were still controlled by the old systemic anomalies, political dynasties and their allies among the elite and the oligarchy. She fired the Marcos-era local government executives, the good along with the bad (mayors and governors), replacing them with mostly incompetent political amateurs — her OICs at the local government level (LGUs). The elections, barely 15 months after EDSA 1986, won for Cory the Senate and House of Representatives, but the more important local governments were no match for the entrenched political families.

Today's column, Part 7, is the culmination of a series of essays on the profiles of corruption of presidents and their administrations post-Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. It is a sad note and an indictment of the Filipino that we as a people have not extricated ourselves from the world's perception of a corrupt country. We rank 116th of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (CPI) in 2022 — bookended by Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic. It is a truism that the Philippines' Third World version of public service is steeped in practices, from bureaucratic slippages and leakages to rent-seeking and regulatory capture — all euphemisms for graft and corruption in government.

Realities of PH governance

 But today, four decades after EDSA, our hopes and expectations are dashed; the culture of corruption continues to be deeply rooted in governance. Graft is institutionalized at the top levels of government. What democracy brought us is the democratization of the looting of public coffers. The tragedy of it all is that it has become a way of life for those who are in public service, permeating those they serve.

In my penultimate column, I suggested to the current Marcos a path he could take: "First, get the unelected members of your family out of the hierarchy of governance and the decision-making process, and use your powers as a strong president to discipline the elected ones. The second is to apply your predecessor the Deegong's dictum, which tragically he failed to follow through: cut off the heads of any of your people tainted by even 'a whiff of corruption.'"

To this, I propose an addendum — for the son to borrow a page from the father's playbook. In September 1972 upon the declaration of martial law, Makoy reorganized government and established a new code of conduct for the bureaucracy directed towards cleaning up the government, starting with the notorious Bureaus of Customs (BoC), Internal Revenue (BIR), the judiciary and regulatory agencies. He called for their resignations — which in these times may be impossible under the current system. What BBM can do immediately instead is to put in place a system of financial rewards to incentivize whistleblowers who report corruption in government? To democratize the initiatives, the process must involve the citizenry to the level where they deal with the bureaucracy on a day-to-day basis; the police involved in racketeering, "tong" collections in the street/traffic level, protecting illegal vendors, drug dealers, house of prostitution and gambling dens; the "hulidap" system of spurious arrest designed to extort payola; 'fixers' in government agencies, collecting fees for licenses, birth/marriage certificates, fees to cut red-tapes; "laglag bala" that victimizes OFWs at airport immigration; and a host of petty corruption at local level.

These may not totally eliminate corruption in government, but they can certainly abate the hemorrhage. But this needs the political will of the president.

Does BBM have it?