Conjunctures and Continuities in Southeast Asian Politics

2. (Re)Assessing the EDSA "People Power" (1986) as a Critical Conjuncture

2 (RE)ASSESSING THE EDSA “PEOPLE POWER” (1986) AS A CRITICAL CONJUNCTURE Rommel Curaming and Lisandro Claudio Having paved the way for restoring democracy after over a decade of Marcos’ authoritarianism, popular views take EDSA People Power as a critical turning point in Philippine political history. This chapter seeks to take another look at this idea by evaluating the socio-political and discursive contexts within which it developed. Exploring two pathways, it shows, firstly, that the extent to which the EDSA revolt may be considered as a critical conjuncture depends significantly on the assessment of, and meanings attached to, the Marcos years. In other words, that this event looms large as a critical turning point notwithstanding the “return to good old days” in Philippine politics that it ushered in, is a reflection of two parallel and mutually reinforcing developments: (1) the hegemony of global discourse on democratization and (2) the strong anti-Marcos sentiments in the post-EDSA years that segments of the elite, civil society and international players promoted for their interests, both altruistic and self-serving. Secondly, this chapter argues that EDSA cannot be assessed simply in terms of its immediate effects on formal economic and political 26 Rommel Curaming and Lisandro Claudio structures. One has to look at the democratization process “from below”, which necessarily takes time, and away from formal democratic institutions, to see the spaces it opened and the political energies it strengthened. A set of broader analytic lenses — ones that consider discursive resonances, that de-centre analysis from central state institutions, and that consider long-term changes in political culture — must be deployed in order to uncover the changes set in train by this event. The EDSA “People Power” revolt of 1986 stands out in political iconography and ideography of democratization, both within and beyond the Philippines. Hailed as a paragon of peaceful political change, it is touted as having inspired through “demonstration effect” the struggles for democracy elsewhere in the region and beyond.1 The outpouring of sympathy for the death of Corazon Aquino in 2009, the victory of her son, Noynoy, in the May 2010 presidential elections, and the continuing effusive paean harped on her and Ninoy juxtaposed against the mounting contempt for Gloria Arroyo, Joseph Estrada and the Marcoses, all seem to indicate the still pre-eminent status of EDSA as a galvanizing political metaphor in the public imagination.2 While efforts by segments of the elite to enflame the “spirit” of the “yellow revolution”3 appear contrived to some observers, the possibility cannot be discounted that a significant section of Philippine society, and of course for various and possibly competing reasons, still holds EDSA as a pivotal historical moment to which it looks back with a mixture of pride, triumph, ambivalence and both wistful and wishful rumination. That EDSA People Power of 1986 was a defining moment in recent Philippine political history cannot be doubted. Its watershed character, however, may not be assumed to be straightforward or unproblematic. The reason is simple: an event as critical as EDSA did not happen, and its meanings may not be grasped, in a social vacuum. The emphasis thus given by this chapter on the discursive in addition to the realpolitik contexts emanates from three considerations: first, the persistent and highly contentious character of the political arena within which EDSA took place and from which an analyst can only pretend to be above or apart; second, the nation state, which is often collapsed to what is happening in the capital or to what the elites in Congress and Malacanang (the district where the presidential palace is located) are doing, is simply too convenient and simplified a level of analysis to capture the complex, multidimensional reality that was EDSA; finally, and more importantly, the political behaviour of contemporary Filipinos appears to be influenced (Re)Assessing the EDSA “People Power” as a Critical Conjuncture 27 more by the “discursive EDSA” than the “real” one, assuming that such a clear-cut distinction is tenable. Given these considerations, the following set of questions should also be raised, in addition to those that call for ascertaining the “true nature” of EDSAas a conjuncture: in what particular sense, for whom, to whom and for what is it considered a watershed? And to what extent may it be so? As a conjuncture, EDSA may not stand alone as an analytic unit. Given the sizeable literature emphasizing the “restorationist” (the...