Dilawan: Rise and Fall of the EDSA Regime - Part 1

PART 1: ORIGIN STORY

From 1986 to 2016, the worldview of the yellow forces in our country dominated the thinking and actions of most Filipinos.

Yellowism or dilawan ideology is a system of moral, political and economic beliefs with normative prescriptions and modalities for regulating and regenerating Philippine society.

It provided a narrative, around which the life of the nation was structured. 

A whole new generation of young Filipinos has been brought up with this belief system.

In 2016, an epoch-making shift took place with the election of Pres. Rody Duterte. To many, this marked the end of the yellow orthodoxy.

In this episode of The Cusp, I’m gonna try to explain what happened. What led to the rise and collapse of the yellow doctrine and the ongoing search for something to replace it.

Videos referred to on the pitfalls of Marcos:
1. Lust for power https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uW4vigtWp08
2-3 Greed and hubris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxdvmHDV9cA
4. Might makes right https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwHLWWGGry8
5. Debt-driven growth strategy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbB3DyfFOVg&t=22s

February 25, 1986.

The EDSA People Power revolt ended with the exile of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos to Hawaii, and the dawn of the Yellow regime. What followed was the drafting of a new constitution and a return to the practices under the old republic, which was set-up under the American Commonwealth era of the 1930s.

1. Espoused beliefs: 

The yellow regime espoused the belief that moral rectitude, liberal democracy, free market capitalism lead to social and economic progress.

This was patterned after Reagan’s republican revolution that redefined politics in the US at the time, and gave rise to a coalition of faith-based social conservatives, neoliberal free marketeers, fiscal and defence hawks who were for reducing the welfare state in favour of a more robust military. I will explain how this orthodoxy infected yellow ideology in subsequent episodes, but for now I just want us to note the parallels.

2.               Exponents:

The exponents of this belief were the Catholic clergy, moneyed elite, academia, media, the professional police and military, and progressive movements. They became the EDSA or yellow coalition - so named after the yellow ribbons that were meant to signify solidarity with Sen. Benigno Aquino,Jr. upon his return from exile in the US (based on the song, tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree, popular in those days).

The church and big business supported Marcos right after Martial Law was imposed, as a way to preserve the old order, following the student protest movement culminating in the first quarter storm of 1972 where the break-down of law and order, led by the hippie cum boomer generation of the time, threatened to upend the moral, political and economic order.

These conservative elements withdrew support from Marcos in time, when his government no longer suited their interests. Following EDSA, the constitution and legal codes of the country observed the norms that the Church and moneyed interests fostered. Any attempt to reform these were met with vehement or tacit opposition from their ranks. 

The media and academia, which were suppressed under Marcos, returned in full force. While providing a venue for criticising the yellow regime, these institutions reinforced it and upheld its narrative for the most part, by doing so, proving that freedom of the press and expression had been restored under the liberal, yellow order, despite of course the continual killing of journalists.

The professional police and military exemplified by Generals Fidel Ramos and Alfredo Lim stood by the principle of civilian supremacy and chain of command, and prevented a return to dictatorship or military adventurism, after EDSA.

EDSA created the democratic space that afforded progressive groups representing the varied causes of organised and militant labor, students and agrarian communities, the ability to voice concerns and even attain some representation in the political system, despite continuously suffering harassment from security forces and vigilantes under the new regime.

3.               The narrative

After a period of calm and progress, following the declaration of Martial Law, Marcos fell into what many regard as the pitfalls associated with concentrating power. This caused his government to go astray, in the eyes of the yellow coalition. I’ve prepared five episodes that tackle each of them, which you can view separately (links in the details of the video).

His government represented a morally and fiscally bankrupt state. Run by technocrats who relied on scientific knowledge, they disregarded the divine order with their population policy of family planning, and sanitized the regime in the eyes of the creditor community, legitimizing it, despite the presence of extractive crony capitalists.

This atheistic scientism led to economic bondage, so the yellow narrative went: debt-driven growth, which created a bubble economy, and then a precipitous collapse after the Latin American debt-crisis, when creditors came a-knocking, leading to severe economic contraction, hyperinflation, poverty, and a diaspora of labor overseas.

The CBCP led by Manila Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Sin undertook an ecclesiastical repudiation of the excesses of the Marcos regime. The often quoted passage from the Bible framed their clarion call towards repentance. It was even put to song. It goes,

“If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray. Then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land.”

Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr’s own spiritual journey became the template for the narrative of redemption that the Yellow forces were shaping. His meteoric rise in the old republic, as a third generation politician from Tarlac, leading him to become the presumptive successor to Pres. Marcos in 1972, was followed by his humbling imprisonment, deprivation and isolation, and his subsequent revival as a voice from the wilderness, followed by his assassination, was a model for the moral arc of justice, espoused by yellow ideologues.

Moral politics: the Filipino nation as the “chosen people”. On a journey toward progress, followed the biblical archetype of the Israelites, chosen by El Shaddai who led them out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 

This fit-in with the economic orthodoxy of neoliberalism, with its faith in the Market as the only true way to lift people out of poverty. The prosperity gospel that evangelicals in the US turned to in the 1980s said that we could have the good things in life, if we claimed it in Jesus name.

This belief in progress attracted religious forces to cause-oriented groups. Liberation theology, led Jesuit volunteers and scholastics (like Fr Albert Alejo) to believe that freedom from poverty was something that we could expect in this world, and not have to wait for until we passed into the next life. Even a branch of the military calling itself the Reform the Armed Forces (RAM) held prayer meetings, seeking moral guidance in the lead up to EDSA. 

Just as the Glorious Revolution in Britain had a religious element to it, so did the “peaceful revolution of EDSA”. The bloodless revolution in the 1680s sought to restore parliamentary authority over monarchical authority. Parliament, which was dominated by the nobility, didn’t want to pay for wars through higher taxes without being consulted by the king. This later formed the basis for the Boston tea party cry of no taxation without representation, which led to the American declaration of independence. In the same way the EDSA revolt of the 1980s sought to restore the authority of the old aristocracy over the central power of the presidency under Marcos, through the restoration of democratic checks and balances.

4.               Good vs Evil

The morality of good versus evil, as Nietzche put it, overtook the morality of good over bad.

The morality of good and bad or morality of the “blonde beasts” as Nietzche called the strong, the rich, and the noble, prevailed in Rome, before its Christian conversion. This is what Marcos’ dispensation represented. In paintings, FM and Imelda were depicted as Adam and Eve, or as in local folklore as si Malakas at si Maganda. Note in that creation story, they partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, because doing so would make them like gods.

The pursuit of the true, the good and the beautiful, Plato’s triad, was taught to Imelda by Adrian Cristobal, the chief ideologue of the Marcos regime. Truth or knowledge,in this case meant being led by a technocracy in the pursuit of progress, a secular mode of governing based on what was deemed good, as established by science and economics, which resulted in the population commission, Bataan Nuclear Plant, and the construction of dams, LRT and more. Imelda led the pursuit of beauty through the arts, palatial surroundings and opulence. This was the morality of the good and the bad. Good in this world was pursued for being good in and of itself, not because of some divine ordinance. Anything that didn’t live up to its lofty ambition was deemed bad.

When Pope John Paul II requested to be brought to a slum area during his papal visit, Imelda’s Human Settlements Ministry proceeded to whitewash the shanty squatter’s areas of Manila to make them look presentable to his Holiness. If the Philippines wanted to become a rich land, it had to look and dress the part.

The excesses in this morality of good versus bad, among the heathen led to Christian slave ressentiment, a term Nietsche used. This drove them to adopt their own morality of good versus evil. Christian morality is based on the meek shall inherit the earth principle. It sought to reverse the morality of might makes right.

Under this morality, weakness is strength, humility leads to power, and the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The slave revolt was led by clergymen, who themselves were members of the nobility, but broke away from their own class to become leaders in the new order, one which repressed man’s selfish ego and prioritised piety. 

But even with the Catholic clergy and members of the oppressed former members of the nobility whose assets were sequestered by Marcos, on their side, as well as the military, the yellow forces needed to convince the powerful American government, the hegemonic patron of the Philippine client state, to support them. The American-backed IMF turned from doting parent to the Marcos regime to a vengeful god, now needed a scapegoat to pin the whole economic malaise on..

5.               Appeasing the global hegemon

This is where the ideology of the moral majority in the US, played its part.

America supported Marcos until the very end. Reagan was particularly a staunch supporter. He even invited FM to Washington where he regaled members of Congress with his epic, Maharlikan war stories. There was a close bond between the two hard-liners.

Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr. witnessed the Republican revolution up close, during his furlough in the US from 1980 to 1983 (Reagan’s first term). Aquino appealed to the evangelical wing of the party, which was becoming a mainstream political force, by appearing as a guest on the 700 Club with the Rev. Pat Robertson to talk about his spiritual awakening in prison. 

He narrated how he came across a book by Chuck Colson, a former Nixon aide who went to jail for his role in Watergate. He was not pardoned by Gerald Ford, but became a converted born again Christian, and subsequently ran a prison ministry, after finishing his sentence.

This was Ninoy’s way of convincing the Christian right in America, that he was one of them, despite having been sentenced by a military court to death by firing squad for conspiring with the communists to depose Marcos.

At a speech in Los Angeles, Ninoy described himself as a proponent of Christian socialism, an ideology that was aligned to centrist politics in Germany and Protestant Scandinavia.

Ninoy read the Bible but continued to pray the Rosary. He was caught clasping the beads as the plane carrying him from Taipei approached Manila International Airport. The iconic picture of him in a meditative, trance-like state, as he recited the various mysteries before meeting his maker with equanimity.

Ninoy, it must be said, might have pursued a different path if he had lived compared to Cory who never forgave the Marcoses, after Ninoy’s death, and acted somewhat vindictively towards them. Ninoy had overcome the resentment and existential angst that had consumed him in the early years of his imprisonment, particularly after fasting. This higher level of consciousness that cognitive scientists say comes after altering our usual biological rhythms through deprivation led to a detachment from existing reality. 

The archetype of Jesus who went into isolation in the wilderness and fasted for forty days and nights, tempted by the serpent and coming out of it with insight, before beginning his ministry. Ninoy to many of his comrades and family members was physically, mentally and spiritually reformed after spending 7.5 years in prison, many of which in solitary confinement and going on an extended hunger strike, which led to his cardiac arrest, while exercising in Fort Bonifacio.

He jokingly justified breaking his deal with Imelda regarding the terms of his medical furlough in the US saying a pact with the devil was not a deal at all. But all joking aside, he was willing to find common ground with his arch-nemesis whom many in the opposition regarded as the personification of evil, due to the thousands of human rights abuses committed under Martial Law. Ninoy was pursuing a politics of accommodation with the former dictator through a power-sharing deal to pave the way for a smooth transition to democracy, to ensure stability and prevent bloodshed. This was based on mutual respect and compromise.

He preached the politics of reconciliation with his former jailer and oppressor. The irony is, it seems he had transcended the morality of good versus evil, while at the same time being the poster child for it. The morality of good versus evil remains to this day with the yellow forces applying a woke purity code that condemns anyone who doesn’t agree with their version of the truth. I doubt even Ninoy would pass their purity tests, if he were alive today.

The EDSA coalition didn’t include the communist forces. Progressive, leftist groups were massed off EDSA, but at the periphery. They boycotted the 1985 snap election and did not support Cory’s candidacy, nor participate in her administration. 

When she spoke before the US Congress after assuming the presidency, her famous line about extending the olive branch of peace to the communists, but willingness to pick up the sword of war if negotiations for their surrender were to bog down, became an instant hit with the Reagan administration.

Alex Boncayao who later led the sparrow brigade, a hit squad of the NPA, was part of Ninoy’s Laban slate in the 1978 Interim Batasan Pambansa election, but the road out of economic bondage would follow the standard neoliberal path, under the yellow regime, not a Marxist-Lenninist- Maoist one.

6.               Wrap-up: 

We have spent this time describing the origin story of the yellow movement. Origin stories are important, because they give us insight into the animating feature of the movement. By knowing its back-story, we grasp its central motive for being.

As you can see, moral politics of the yellows formed a coherent worldview, which is why it has had resonance with ordinary Filipinos for such a long time and provided for many of them a way of making sense of their world, gaining meaning and agency, or a way to behave and operate within it. It gave legitimacy to certain forms of being and thinking.

But worldviews provide a cultural blinkers too, a prism through which to see the world and filter reality. What happens when this reality no longer conforms to their ideals? What happens when it fails to explain what is happening in the world. Do the people who hold this view abandon it? Or do they delude themselves to reject reality to preserve it?

During the past thirty years, there have been many instances where the mental models on which this moral politik was founded got challenged. Periods of potential rupture, but it basically held up, and even experienced a renaissance in 2009, after Mrs Aquino’s passing, which led to the election in 2010 of Benigno III.

In the next episode, we will look at what happened during the ascendancy of yellow ideology. How it became the dominant mode of existing in our society, and the beginnings of the end, as the mental model failed to predict the future, which led many to question it, and to search for new modes of being.