What now?

That impressive turnout at the Luneta last Monday was only half-expected.

After all, the weather barely cooperated. The whole city was just emerging from days of flooding. A new storm blew menacingly close. The ground was soaked. This is just the wrong time of the year for rallies.

After all, President Aquino tried to steal the wind out of this rally’s sails by a deceptive announcement last Friday about the pork barrel being “abolished.” The truth was the pork was to be repackaged in a manner the masters of lard still have to figure out given the hastiness of policy twists dictated more by the contingencies of public relations than by the coherence of well-envisioned reform.

People turned out nevertheless, egged on not by political masters but by their own conversations in social media. They came with their sandwiches and, admirably, an inexhaustible supply of trash bags, leaving the park even cleaner than when they found it, the thick mud notwithstanding.

The mood was festive and good-natured, almost belying the rage that brought us all together in the first place: the rage over the systemic plunder of public monies by the entire political class, the rape of government by those entrusted to administer it, the bankrupt political culture that made official thievery the norm.

There was much room for improvisation at the Luneta last Monday. Anyone with anything to say was free to do so in whatever corner of the large crowd he found himself in. Those who wanted to be more emphatic came with their own colorful costumes. This was, after all, a gathering without orthodoxy, just a general moral compass about what government ought to be and what citizens should do. 

Luneta, last Monday, was the center of gravity of the ethical principles we need to build a great nation. This is the same sort of crowd that made two peaceful popular risings possible in the span of a generation. This gathering is a restatement of hope that we are not a country condemned by a “damaged culture.”

If last Monday’s rally were an experiment, the results are tremendously encouraging.

This is the first major political gathering in our context that was undertaken without an organizing committee. It is an awesome gathering brought together entirely through social media. There are no leaders here, only participants. Each one went to the park by personal conviction alone.

The point of this rally being leaderless was brought home the moment costs needed to be defrayed. I was standing next to Vince Lazatin of the Transparency and Accountability Network when he found out the video wall that formed the major focal point for the assembly had to be paid for. His jaw dropped when he found out P50,000 was being charged for the device. No one bothered to raise money for it.

So please, if you run into Vince today, please hand the man some money. We all owe him some affordable amount.

The aspect of being leaderless might not be so much of a problem in bringing a large crowd together. It might be a problem for sustaining the momentum of this political action.

The very first political action assembled entirely through social media was Occupy Wall Street, animated by popular anger over the greed of financial companies responsible for the 2008 meltdown.

Occupy Wall Street began in, well, Wall Street. It quickly spread to other major US cities and eventually replicated in other capitals around the world. Without a leadership structure, however, the movement dissipated. The Gods of Finance continue to do their thing without being bothered by techies camped out in the streets.

The Occupy movement was soon followed by more explosive popular assemblies in the Arab world. The one at Tahrir Square that booted out the Mubarak regime was assembled mainly through Facebook. After Mubarak was ousted, however, the democratic forces lost Egypt’s first genuine elections to the more organized Muslim Brotherhood, a regressive and authoritarian movement.

Last Monday’s assembly at the Luneta is surely a watershed event. It establishes that, in the new media environment, citizens do not have to depend on organized political groups to be able to vent their sentiments and press demands. Once a strong consensus forms in virtual space, citizens could make things happen in real space.

The matter of maintaining political tempo, of consolidating gains and setting directions remain problematic, however. I am sure our citizens are more sophisticated now and should be able to resolve the matter of replicating leadership roles in amorphous digital space at some point.

The outrage over pork barrel politics will not die down anytime soon, no matter how hard the political aristocracy that rules us may try to confuse us with intentionally vague “reforms.” That outrage needs to be translated into sustainable political pressure to force the traditional politicians to yield more ground to transparency, such as when President Aquino abandoned his defense of the pork barrel in fear of public anger in the streets.

The next focal point for citizens outraged by pork barrel politics is the Senate hearing that begins today, apparently focused only on the COA report.

That report, we now know, is limited by the unwillingness of the DBM to provide all the documents. Unlike the COA, the Senate could actually subpoena documents. We hope the hearings conducted today will do that — especially the documents covering pork barrel use the past three years.

If the Senate does not do that, the next public assembly may be a little south of the Luneta.