EDSA: An unfinished revolution!
Still no justice!
As the country marks this week the 29th anniversary of the People's Power Revolution or EDSA 1, our talk show "Straight from the Sky" will tackle the question, "What have we learned from the EDSA Revolution?" Of course the first one was in EDSA on Feb. 25, 1986 while we had another one called EDSA II on Jan. 19, 2001. Hence the question… why is the Philippines still a failed state today?
With us tonight are people who still remember EDSA I. While it happened in Manila, Cebu was also part of this history. I recall we were with presidential candidate Corazon C. Aquino and vice presidential candidate Salvador "Doy" Laurel at a rally at Fuente Osmeña, when all their speeches had to be cut short because something was a-brewing in EDSA. It turned out that Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and AFP Chief Fidel V. Ramos had declared their intention to separate from Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos and thus, history was made. 29 years later, we still need another EDSA because unfortunately we didn't finish this revolution.
So tonight we have Dr. Rene Bullecer, Mr. Francisco "Kito" Unchuan and Mr. Maximo Ricohermoso to tell us their EDSA stories and answer the question, "What have we learned from the EDSA Revolution?" What his interesting talk about our political history on SkyCable's channel 61 with replays on Wednesday and Saturday. We also have replays on MyTV's channel 30 at 9:00 tonight also at 7:00AM & 9:00PM on Wednesday and Saturday.
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For the past week, I have been reviewing the book entitled "Why Nations Fail: the Origins of power, prosperity and poverty" by authors Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson because since the 1986 EDSA People's Power Revolt, the Philippines has gone from bad to worse. Where did we make a big mistake that the Philippines is unable to move forward?
In a nutshell, what has happened to the Philippines is that we created a Constitution where supposedly we have constitutional bodies that are supposed to act or be independent of the three branches of the Philippine government, the Executive, the Legislative and the Judiciary. But the fusion of the Executive and the Legislative Branches, especially when Pres. Benigno Aquino III took the leadership of the ruling Liberal Party (LP) literally destroyed any checks and balances that once existed between these two separate branches of government, this includes the constitutional bodies.
This is why when the Executive Branch led by Pres. Aquino, asked (was it just an advice or an order?) his allies to impeach the sitting Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Renato Corona and in less than an hour without any debate, the impeachment was approved. Then the senators convicted CJ Corona despite the evidence against him was something that he could still change in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth and in so doing, the Executive granted a hefty largesse's to these senators to the tune of P100 million per senator from their pork barrels.
Congressmen who impeached the Chief Justice also got their respective shares from a grateful President… after all, that impeachment trial was nothing but vendetta by the Aquino Family against CJ Corona for declaring the Hacienda Luisita as owned by the tenant farmers who worked there. This use of the vast powers of the government by the Aquino Family in order to effect a family vengeance is one of the contributory factors why the Philippines today has become a failed state 29 years after the EDSA Revolt.
One of the slogans that we used 29 years ago against the conjugal Marcos Dictatorship was "Justice for Aquino, Justice for All" yet 29 years later, Justice has been denied the Filipino people. The latest is the demands for Justice by the grieving families of the 44 Special Action Force brutally mowed down and shot in close range by the MILF, yet because Pres. Aquino has not told the nation the truth, the Senate investigations are now mostly closed door meetings, thus denying the SAF families the justice they are demanding.
Yet before the SAF massacre in Maguindanao, we were already demanding justice from the Aquino Regime. Call it the irony of ironies that under the watch of Pres. Aquino, justice still evades the Filipino nation. A case in point is the case between Ben-Hur Luy and his cousin/boss Janet Lim Napoles, whose testimonies showed some 20 Senators and 100 congressmen implicated in the use of fake NGO's so they could get their cut from the release of their respective pork barrels.
What's wrong with the Philippines today 29 years after EDSA I is that justice is slapped on poor Filipinos who can't afford the services of lawyers. But justice for the rich is something else. Just look at the case of Delfin Lee, whom our present Police Chief in Cebu PSSupt. Conrado Capa arrested. But instead, Supt. Capa was demoted to Cebu. This is what Justice is today.
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