Our Tahrir

This is how revolutions begin these days: by means of social media.

One lady executive, contemplating her own anger, decided to send out a message asking friends to spend a fine day at the Luneta Park, garbed in white, making their sentiments known in peaceful assembly. This will be a neo-protest action: no streamers, no groups peddling their ancient ideologies, no firebrands on soapboxes, just plain taxpayers angry over what our politics has become.

Mao Zedong once said a revolution is not a picnic. Well, he is wrong as usual because this one is. It begins in the morning, so everyone is expected to bring his own packed lunch. The politicians are not expected to distribute sandwiches. Please do not forget to bring bottled water and dispose of trash properly.

Everyone I talked to intends to be at the Luneta on Monday, National Heroes Day. This could be a watershed event.

What is fascinating about this event is that it has no leaders. It snowballs almost spontaneously. Parallel protest actions are being organized in all the major cities and by Filipinos abroad.

Already, Monday’s gathering is compared to the one at Cairo’s Tahrir Square that brought down the Mubarak regime. That gathering, giving birth to what has been called the “Arab Spring,” had no leaders. People mobilized by means of social media.

The most memorable picture in my mind of that historic gathering at Tahrir Square was that of a protestor waving a placard that simply read: Facebook. That summed it all up, the empowerment of ordinary citizens by the new media.

In the past, the formation of political parties was a necessary precondition for mobilizing the masses. The party was basically a means for communication: first to achieve unanimity in understanding and, second, to orchestrate the actions of many.

In the present information technology environment, the communicative role political parties traditionally played was displaced by new media. By any of the many available channels of social media, consensus could be quickly formed. Political action could be quickly planned. Tactical goals and strategic objectives could be agreed upon by the people themselves, without need for designated leaders and ideologues.

The new media, by the way, renders many more political institutions, not just political parties, redundant.

The word “parliament” derives from the French verb “parler” (to talk). The whole concept of a deliberative assembly of people’s representatives (deputies) is a communications device. Before modern information technology became pervasive, deputies had to travel to the capital, sit physically together in a large hall and talk among themselves.

Social media diminished the utility of such a talk shop. Ordinary citizens may now talk among themselves, cheaply and quickly.

When the traditional means of public representation have been corrupted, it is easy for spontaneous public assemblies to gain ascendant legitimacy. This is the underlying dynamic of contemporary people power phenomena.

When the Iranian revolution happened in 1979, it was called the “audiocassette revolution” because the Ayatollah’s speeches were quickly transmitted through widely available cassette players capable of duplicating audio. Our own 1986 Edsa uprising was called the “Xerox revolution” because public consensus, in the face of mainstream media censorship, was formed by photocopying text. 

The democratic forces that convened at Tiananmen Square (and was brutally crushed by tanks) was called the “fax revolution” because activists communicated with the outside world by what was then cutting edge technology. The democratic rising in Bangkok that pushed aside military rule was called the “cellphone revolution” featuring activists on motorbikes and with mobile phones coordinating lightning rallies all over the capital, outwitting both the police and the army.

Then there was Facebook and the “Arab Spring.” Every advance in communications technology, putting broadcasting means in the hands of the masses, reflected in the deepening of the democratization process. The political aristocracy has reason to shudder in the face of angry citizens armed with smart phones.

After professing his love for pork just a week ago, President Aquino this week modified his stance and called for the suspension of pork releases. Yesterday he retreated further, agreeing that the notorious PDAF be scrapped although he held forth some vague “mechanism” for pork distribution.

The social media crowd quickly rejected mere suspension and demand nothing less than the dismantling of the pork barrel system. Total rejection of pork, including presidential pork, has emerged as the principal demand for next Monday’s “picnic.”

It was reported that Palace operatives are now frantically working to insulate the President from the rage of citizens over pork. They are feverishly working the social media, vainly attempting to take control of the messaging. They unleashed their army of cyber-bullies to gnarl at those who take aim at Aquino.

They are working against the facts, however. Under Aquino, congressional pork more than doubled. Former national treasurer Leonor Briones says the “special purpose funds” at the disposal of the sitting president ballooned to P449.96 billion, a fifth of the entire national budget.

The Napoles scandal is just the tip of a large iceberg. One cannot stop at rejecting the congressional pork barrel without rejecting pork barrel politics altogether. Since the pork barrel underpins the whole edifice of patronage politics, the outrage might soon translate into a complete rejection of the patronage-based political class. The outcry against dynastic politics, quelled by the sheer absence of alternatives, now finds more solid footing.

This is why Monday’s “picnic” has great revolutionary potential.