After one brief, shining moment, Camelot – to our shame – was abandoned to the looters

Yesterday, at the Club Filipino, it was an "all stars" commemoration of People Power 1986. The affair was held at the Kalayaan Hall – the same hall in which President Corazon C. Aquino had been sworn in as the nation’s leader, in the wake of the victory of the EDSA movement.

The hall was jampacked. The members of the "Tuesday Club" had joined the gathering, coming over from their "headquarters" in the EDSA Plaza Shangri-La. Also present in full force were the members of the Greenhills Walking Corporation.

What was important was that many of the true heroes of EDSA’s "People Power" uprising of 1986 were there, from ex-President Fidel V. Ramos who had valiantly rallied the civilians and the military to a common cause, to former Vice President Salvador "Doy" Laurel, and dozens who had once stood fast at the barricades, facing up to tanks, armored cars, and tear gas, armed only with courage, rosaries, and faith.

Speaking, too, at that gathering of the clan was former Interior and Local Government Secretary and ex-Mayor Fred Lim. As the ranking police general dispatched by the dictatorship to quell the EDSA "uprising", he had refused to obey the violent command of the regime. Present, too, was Metro Manila Development Authority Chairman and DPWH Secretary Bayani Fernando, who’s still fighting on EDSA to quell the traffic anarchy there – and a gridlock much worse than produced by the 1986 barricades.

Former President Cory Aquino and His Political Turbulence Jaime Cardinal Sin (whose radio summons to the faithful to flock to the barricades had been the inspiration of the EDSA non-violent revolution) were elsewhere, also delivering messages about that stirring event of 17 years ago.

I’ll name no more, and from those unmentioned I beg forgiveness (for this is not a society column). But it made our hearts twinkle to relive old memories, and recall that for one brief shining moment, as that song about King Arthur’s noble dream went, we had Camelot. We toppled a tyrannical regime with a shout – and a prayer. The world stood in awe of the Filipino, as we were, I must admit with subsequent embarrassment, indeed in awe of ourselves. How brief that golden moment was! Sooner rather than later, the euphoria faded, the flags snapping bravely in the breeze went limp, enthusiasm flagged, and the vermin and the looters crept out of their crevices (they never left) to resume their evil work.

Someone once said – and I remembered that cynical saying yesterday – that "soon every Revolution evaporates, leaving behind it only the slime of a new bureaucracy". In the case of EDSA "People Power" 1, it wasn’t even a new bureaucracy that constituted the slime which finally engulfed and overwhelmed its brave idealism. It was the same old, corrupt bureaucracy which had been fostered and nurtured, waxing fat, by 20 years of the Macoy and Imelda Kleptocracy Show.

All it took for the bureaucratic criminals to resume their accustomed shenanigans was to attach themselves to the New Leadership and hang out the shingle, "Under New Management".

As for the men and women who had been the real backbone of that wonderful "People Power" phenomenon, they declined to take power, and returned to their everyday lives. I don’t believe in endlessly "celebrating" EDSA. It’s a waste of time, and, worse, those interminable holidays cost the nation hundreds of millions of pesos in lost revenues, unnecessary "holiday" pay, grave losses to daily-wage earners (who earn not a single peso when there’s no work that day), and lost momentum. Enough of fiestas and celebration. What’s essential is to keep working – and never lose hope.

Finally, the next time around – if ever – we ought to apply a lesson we learned so painfully from the failure of EDSA I to bring us to the heights – we fell, instead, with a painful thump to the bottom of the mountain. And this is that a Revolution must never be abandoned in the hour of triumph. It’s the post-Revolution, or, in sum, what happens afterwards that counts.

Look at what happened in Russia in 1917. The moderate revolutionaries under the charismatic leadership of Socialist Alexander Kerensky had formed a Provisional Government, then overthrew the Tsar in 1917. However, Kerensky and his followers in the Moscow and Petrograd, Dumas wavered. They were overthrown by the Bolsheviks – shouting "All power to the Soviets" under Leon Trotsky and V. I. Lenin (who had himself smuggled in from enforced exile in Switzerland, concealed inside a railroad boxcar which arrived at the Finland Station). The Communists thus won the "October Revolution" of 1917.

In short, it’s not enough to overthrow tyranny. You’ve got to make sure that your revolution isn’t frustrated by hungry, new predators riding to control on the shoulders of the people’s yearnings and aspirations. After that admirable, valiant EDSA upheaval of 1986 – came disappointment and disillusionment.

If justice delayed is justice denied (as the axiom goes), an unfinished revolution is a revolution undone. We must try again – not at the barricades, but within our hearts. And put our shoulders to the wheel.

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The North Koreans acted, on cue, to send a message to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had arrived in Seoul, South Korea, last Monday to attend the inauguration yesterday of Mr. Roh Moo Hyun as the new President of the Republic of Korea. Pyongyang fired a missile which plopped into the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan – which, of course, attracted worldwide notice, and provoked the Japanese into a tizzy.

Message delivered. North Korea’s gambit was a warning that the heavily-armed north could shower South Korea (and the 37,000 American servicemen stationed there) with missiles, obliterating, for instance, large sections of Seoul itself – which lies just south of the DMZ or the wrongly-named Demilitarized Zone at the 38th Parallel.

American officers have ruefully admitted that, with 13,000 artillery pieces and thousands of rocket batteries and mortars "ranged along the DMZ, North Korea could rain as many as 500,000 rounds an hour on South Korea". Since the US Yongsan Army Garrison is situated right smack in the middle of Seoul (less than 70 km from the DMZ), the US troops there would be an easy target.

Powell, reports said, was dismayed (but didn’t say so publicly) at the new president’s strong opposition to any US military action against North Korea for any reason. Powell, in his press conference yesterday, therefore confirmed that the US definitely contemplated no attack against the North, but added that the Americans, on the other hand, would not take a "military option" in the future off the table.

When this writer interviewed the 57-year-old Mr. Roh in Seoul last September (shortly after we had also met his pre-decessor and political padrino, the just retired President Kim Dae-Jung, 78, in the Blue House), it was clear that Roh envisioned a Greater Korea, with Seoul and Pyongyang working hand-in-hand to become the hub of the region. At the time, I described Mr. Roh, who was the just-anointed candidate of the administration’s Millennium Democratic Party, "brilliant", but few I interviewed at the time gave him any hope of winning the December elections.

Indeed, Roh won over his conservative, hardlining Grand National Party opponent, Lee Hoi-Chang, by only two percent – riding to victory on the crest of growing anti-American sentiment among the voters. The Grand National Party, however, has the majority in parliament – which promises to give the former human-rights lawyer, Roh, some problems in the months to come.

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Powell and the Americans must not be surprised by Roh’s attitude.

Years ago, when he was fighting his way up the political ladder, Roh had actually advocated the removal of all American forces from South Korea. He modified this somewhat by later declaring that what was needed was equality and respect from the Americans in their dealings with the South Koreans. (If you’ll recall, Roh’s father-in-law spent years in South Korean prison, convicted as a "traitor" who had helped the North Koreans when they invaded the country in 1950 – and he admits he’s influenced by his wife, whom he loves dearly. Close family "ties" can also influence or signify similar political thinking, perhaps.)

Roh has been openly declaring that "an attack on North Korea could trigger a war engulfing the entire Korean peninsula". He was ready to differ with the US, he asserted, "if it helps prevent war".

On another occasion, he stated: "Dialogue and engagement is the best way to make North Korea abandon its weapons of mass destruction." Naïve? Probably pragmatic, I’d say. For if your 47-million population lives within easy range of the warlike Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s guns, rockets and missiles, and the North’s 1.1 million-man armed forces, with their tank divisions, could readily roll south across the 38th parallel, you’d think twice about rocking the boat.

If you ask me, the US should ship out its 37,000 troops. As long as they’re within target range, they’re "hostages", not effective defenders.

But they can’t ship those servicemen down south, here to Zamboanga and Sulu. From what we’ve been hearing from Kuala Lumpur, along with those fascinating photographs of our Commander-in-Chief GMA whispering sweet nothings into the ear of Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (who’s declared "war" must be outlawed, most of all American "war") and, in Spanish, to a smiling Fidel Castro, our President Gloria had truly joined the Non-Aligned Movement.