Why people no longer troop to EDSA

Thirty-four years ago when Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assassinated as he descended from a plane that arrived from Taipei at the old Manila International Airport (MIA), the nation was outraged and millions showed up for his funeral, but then the crony media could only notice the death of a person who was perched on a tree when he was struck by lightning. Ninoy’s death ended the 14-year conjugal Marcos dictatorship and started the reign of the Aquinos in Malacañang.

During the 1986 presidential campaign, Tita Cory went to town telling the Filipino people that she was “Talagang walang alam ako,” that she didn’t know how to steal or how to be corrupt… and we rooted for her and in the end she became the next President after Pres. Ferdinand Marcos fled to Hawaii. However in hindsight, then President Cory Aquino under the Freedom Constitution signed the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which allowed her government to distribute private land to the landless in the nation’s biggest land reform program.

Everything went smoothly except for that glitch that Tita Cory signed called Stock Distribution Option (SDO), which allowed the Aquino family to give stocks to the farmers staying in the Hacienda Luisita rather than land. For us lesser mortals, we lost our agricultural land, while the Aquinos kept Hacienda Luisita. This is the same SDO that the Supreme Court (SC) then led by Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona declared en banc as unconstitutional… the rest is history.

Since the days Pres. Cory Aquino and the succeeding presidents after her, including her son P-Noy, the people attending the celebrations for the EDSA Revolution or Ninoy’s death have stopped joining. One main reason perhaps is that the majority of the Filipino people still remained poor, while the rich oligarchs became richer under the two Aquino presidency. Ultimately, in the 2016 presidential elections, the electorate veered away from the traditional politicians from Luzon and supported the candidacy of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Roa Duterte who rose to Malacañang on the promise to fight a war against illegal drugs, a war that still rages today.

This war against drugs last week ended with the killing of so many people in Caloocan City and snuffed the life of 17-year-old Kian delos Santos. The death of Kian no doubt sparked outrage simply because he was underage and could still be rehabilitated. However, the critics of Pres. Duterte apparently used Kian’s death as the catalyst that could lead to the downfall of Pres. Duterte. Since Monday was the 34th death anniversary of the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino, many yellow trolls proposed to their cult members to troop to the EDSA monument in a nationwide protest against the death of Kian and Duterte’s uncontrolled war against drugs.

But last Monday, the rains in Metro Manila literally poured on their protest with my Facebook friends showing me photos of less than 300 protesters at the EDSA Shrine. In the past, the rains didn’t deter an angry mob from showing up to air their grievances against the government. How times have changed in the 30 years since the EDSA Revolt. I would like to believe that the critics of Pres. Duterte should never have used Ninoy’s death anniversary to protest against the death of Kian.

In the first place no less than Pres. Duterte himself already announced that there would be no sacred cows in the investigation on the killing of Kian. This was clearly a policy depature from what happened in Baybay, Leyte to Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa who was killed inside the jail. No doubt this diffused the tension about the killing of the 17-year-old kid. But it didn’t stop the critics of Pres. Duterte from proposing an uprising against his government especially when Bureau of Customs Commissioner Nick Faeldon failed to prevent a P6.4-billion shipment of “shabu” from China. A week ago, Pres. Duterte stuck to his guns and kept Faeldon in the BOC.

No wonder Pres. Duterte retorted to these calls for an uprising saying, “If there is an uprising, go ahead all those who do not believe in me. Let us have an uprising.” This issue reveals to us that the critics of Pres. Duterte just can’t wait to have him replaced via an unconstitutional way like another EDSA Revolution. But once more, Pres. Duterte diffused the angst when all of the sudden, he appointed Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) Director Isidro Lapeña to replace Nick Faeldon in the BOC.

But like what I already wrote, the problem with our political opposition is that they cannot seem to see what should be the priority of our nation. While the death of Kian still has to be investigated, however pundits call him a mere “Collateral damage” in the war against drugs and I fully concur. But in my book, the top priority that Congress needs to do is to act on the impeachment complaint filed against Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista.

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