Can a revolution be tweeted or facebooked? What next?

The million march in Rizal Park did not happen overnight. It happened through a slow evolution of like-minded citizens communicating with each other. Their ideas then jelled into a political cause. And from political cause moved to action.

So it is not quite true that Facebook or Twitter cannot make up for personal relationships necessary for a revolutionary cause. In Facebook and Twitter, tweeting and posting take the place of meetings when a discussion takes place. They do get to know each other and what they believe in through their postings.

I was first introduced to Facebook when I found it as an alternative way to communicate my opinions to a wider public. It takes the place of owning a newspaper because all I had to do was post and get an audience who will then share the posting if they believed in it too. That sharing grows everyday.  It can have an even wider reach than printed newspapers that is why newspapers have gone online. I could say anything I wanted to (subject to the rules of morals and decency). I felt liberated.

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My own epiphany, as it were, came about after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Small Change in New Yorker three years ago. It questioned the ability of Facebook and Twitter users to launch a revolution. He debunked the ability of social media users to bring about radical political reforms and cited Moldva in the spring of 2009.

What it can do is to organize protest marches but it alone cannot bring about change and we should begin looking into what can be done. Senate President Franklin Drilon may have gotten it right by asking

“What do they want us to do? Abolish Congress?”

As for Malacanang it has been too busy with damage control that it is getting itself into contradictory knots like condemning pork barrel while preserving its own discretionary social fund without accountability.

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Having read “Small Change” in New Yorker led me to a group of young activists who were eager to organize. We had one meeting in a Starbucks coffee shop in Ortigas and I said what I thought would be necessary to turn postings into action. They would have to organize and have a hierarchical structure with corresponding responsibilities. I never saw them again. We went our own ways. By 2013 they were organized into a group. At that time the crucial issue was the Smartmatic-PCOS and I saw some of them in meetings.  They already had a name — Tanggulang Demokrasya.

So if I were conversing with Malcolm Gladwell I would have told him that Facebook and Twitter might not launch a revolution but it can lead to launching a revolution.

In other words the marching must lead to a binding political tract and effective actions to bring it about.

Facebook warriors go online to push for change. Meetings and protests happen through discussion by posting and re-posting. These actions heightened with the fraudulent elections of 2010 and 2013.  They also took up the cause of Chief Justice Renato Corona whose trial violated the rule of law. It was clear that the President was prepared to destroy institutions for the government agenda to weaken the judicial arm of government.

More blogs and individual members joined the causes of Tanggulang Demokrasya.  

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The million march coming as it does from a call from Facebook and Twitter cannot be expected to be homogenous. Indeed there were even groups who were there to defend the Aquino government even after he said that pork barrel cannot be removed just like that.  The intent was to hijack the case against pork barrel. There were leftists and rightists, middle class and upper class. But where were the workers or the poor who were disadvantaged by the pork barrel? They would have been there if there was food or transportation and a freebie for attending. 

Marchers were reminded again and again the protest was non-partisan. Originally it was announced there would be no placards or banners but there were. Although the theme was to wear white for its neutrality as a simple protest against the pork barrel, there were those who stuck to yellow.

 Something else will have to be done other than gathering and marching of neutral groups in the streets. There should be committed individuals.

Indeed, it cannot be said that being in Facebook or Tweeter will lead to an activism on the level of the Civil Rights Movement.  There is talk about another protest and still another until the government acts and listens but it will need much more than that.

We need to answer questions like - What do we want? What are we protesting about? It cannot be the pork barrel issue alone because even if it is removed the presidential system that nurtures it will continue. I believe the million march for reforms by like minded groups should move to concrete radical action.

In my view we cannot remove pork barrel without changing the system. It could mean removing the government under the present Constitution and putting up a transition government. That means debates and discussions, taking risks and meeting the issue of comprehensive change in our structure of government and politics. According to Gladwell that requires more than social media. The question has to be asked just how many Facebook or Twitter users would be willing to actually expose themselves to the dangers and risks of revolution in the real world.

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Whatever future actions are contemplated as a follow up to the millionmarch on August 26, a picture is emerging on the logic of events:

First, use pork barrel to get Congress to remove Corona and weaken the Supreme Court.

Second, Smartmatic-PCOS elections to have a 60-30-10 elections to control who should be elected to Congress.

Third, Pork barrel expose of potential rivals to incite public anger against members of Congress.

Fourth, offer solution to appease public anger.

Five, the solution offered is for executive to control all the pork barrel instead.

That means Government seizure has been completed for authoritarian rule.

Who is behind this agenda?       

We are now in the fourth phase with the president saying at the same time that pork barrel will be removed from Congress but he will keep his own pork barrel.

The latest sleight of hand is for Napoles to surrender to him because “she only trusts him.”