EDITORIAL — Unfulfilled promise

It was a messy way to resolve a political crisis, and the nation is still dealing with the mess, six years after the second people power revolt. Many who supported EDSA II are openly regretting it now. More precisely, they are regretting the installation of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in power, although there are those who are willing to go to EDSA again to install their latest choice to lead the nation.

Ironically, that is the most painful lesson learned from EDSA Dos: there are no short cuts to lasting reforms. The 1986 people power revolt was no short cut; it was several years in the making, years in which every democratic institution was subverted by the martial law regime. Even the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. did not lead immediately to revolution, although it ended public apathy to the abuses of the dictatorship. The 1986 snap presidential election was simply the last straw. With even the Supreme Court subverted, and the chief justice at the time swearing in Ferdinand Marcos as president in perpetuity, Filipinos finally said enough.

Those elements were not present at EDSA Dos. The institutions that were nurtured after the collapse of the Marcos regime, though fragile, were still working in January 2001. Ousting Joseph Estrada proved so easy that in the next six years, there were repeated attempts to recreate the uprising and effect yet another regime change.

Fortunately for the administration born of EDSA II, Filipinos have repeatedly shown that they have had enough of popular revolts. Instead they want to see the promise of people power – both the first and the second – fulfilled.

This includes cleaning up the voting system so it cannot be used ever again to perpetuate anyone in power. It means a commitment to respect human rights, and making sure the military and police will never again be used as instruments of state repression. It means a commitment to reforms in the Armed Forces, which includes insulating it from politics, so that its members know their proper role in a democracy. It includes getting serious about the campaign to stamp out corruption – a campaign that booted out Estrada but has since lost steam. And it includes making democratic institutions strong enough so Filipinos will never again feel the need for people power to effect change.