The EDSA
narrative provides its adherents a meaningful way of making sense of the world
based on a valorizing worldview. In this narrative, the Philippines is like the
chosen people of Israel who were delivered from the bondage of dictatorship and
ushered into the promised land of freedom.
The past
five years under Duterte, would have felt like an exile to Babylon for the
opposition. Their defeat in the midterm election of 2019 signaled the prolonging
of this exile from power. The recent death of Noynoy Aquino has been used to
revive their fortunes in time for next year’s polls. So, can they return to
power in 2022?
In opposition, the Liberals and their allies have had time to reflect. Why have they fallen so out of favor with voters? Just like the exilic Jews who pondered their fate in Babylon and the meaning of it. The temptation, and in fact the norm would be to adopt the gods of their conquerors and lose their religion. Should the political opposition do the same and bow to their fate?
Of course,
for the faithful the answer to that would be ‘no’. If so, then a plausible,
credible explanation would have to be found for why they have fallen so far
from political grace.
The
worshipping of false gods by the Israelites was the reason given by the Jews to
explain why the Lord had allowed them to be conquered. This historical
narrative allowed them to hold on to their cultural and religious beliefs despite
being in a strange land. And by remaining true to their religion, they found a
way back from exile with their identity intact. So, is there a parallel here
for the children of EDSA, and if so, then what? How can they credibly explain
their fall from power and find their way back from political oblivion?
Ninoy had
espoused a belief in Christian Socialism, which traced its roots to the
attempts of an enlightened monarch in Denmark to liberate his people from
serfdom through mass education. It was a human centered form of capitalism
aimed at affording the full blossoming of ordinary citizens to reach their
fullest potential. The success of this model is demonstrated today by
Scandinavia being one of the wealthiest, least corrupt, and happiest places on earth.
The
adoption of a neoliberal worldview by the EDSA regime with its idolatry of the
Market, espoused by Washington and mediated through market-enhancing
institutions of governance promoted by the WB and IMF, was in effect what had
caused the children of EDSA to go astray. This is what invited populist
backlashes from the left, in the form of Erap Estrada in 1998, from within,
with the apostasy of Gloria Arroyo in 2004, and from the right, with the
ascendancy of Rody Duterte in 2016.
Vice Pres.
Robredo for her part has emphasized the dynamism of the private sector for
collective action by brokering donations between corporate foundations and
needy communities. She has not lasted long in any of the public roles assigned
to her, first as housing czar then as co-chair of the Inter-agency Committee on
Anti-Illegal Drugs, preferring instead to become a maverick policy
entrepreneur.
Her support
for marginalized communities through her ‘Angat Buhay program’ is still
consistent with a neoliberal view that public investment merely crowds out
charitable spending. It is consistent with a minimalist role for the state,
relying on the magic of markets to broker the needs of society through
voluntary, altruistic donations by moneyed elite: trickle-down economics, in
effect. Government by NGO.
Duterte
didn’t mind breaking with this tradition. He didn’t kowtow to the international
rules-based order when dealing with the West Philippine Sea or human rights
issue. He in effect defiled the sacred cows before which the EDSA forces fall prostrate.
He offered
instead a kind of tough love for the development of the Filipino by focusing on
the social ills that have come about because of the aimless accumulation of
wealth in the pursuit of materialist, consumerist culture. This tyranny of
freedom, of unconstrained choice fostered by free markets, has only led to
alienation, apathy and addictive forms of behavior.
Duterte, in
acting like a strict father establishing boundaries and disciplining his
children has stepped into the breach because while the EDSA narrative
structured our political and economic ways of life, it had nothing to offer us
from a social standpoint. Neither did the post-EDSA regime engage in the
necessary work of political and electoral reforms needed to truly democratize
participation in our society.
With the
recent passing of Noynoy Aquino, his former confidante Rep. Joey Salceda
offered an assessment of his legacy. He praised him for accomplishing many
noble things, but also said that PNoy suffered from a lack of ambition due to
his ‘worldview’. He had the most favorable macroeconomic conditions, but failed
to seize the opportunities these presented. This lack of ambition was his
cardinal policy failing.
This is
what obscured the original agapic vision of Noynoy’s father for a human
centered form of development. This idolatry of the market is the folly that has
led to their political exile, so it behooves the children of EDSA to return to
The Source for inspiration.
If Duterte
represents a consumptive love of country - a form of governance that destroys
human life to preserve it, that breaks the law to uphold it; and, if the EDSA
regime represents a reciprocal kind of love - a form of governance that relies
on transactional markets and padrino-based politics, then the agapic love of
country, of actualizing individuals by investing in their human capacities is
what the successor to the EDSA regime must work towards.
Only by
rediscovering this forgotten vision can the children of EDSA rescue themselves
from irrelevance. Acknowledging where they went wrong would go a long way
towards healing the partisan divide with those who were once in their broad
coalition but no longer see themselves as part of it.
The question is, who among their leaders today would be so humble as to do that? Dare I say none; and so, for the true believers in Ninoy’s Impossible Dream, they may have to go outside the fold to find a leader who can re-imagine the promise of EDSA and bring its children back from exile into the Promised Land.
