[OPINION] A protest motion at conflict with itself

We’re too outdated for this, I advised a pal who’s a former reporter, as we chatted in regards to the separate rallies that the anti-corruption motion mounted on November 30 in Metro Manila. 

However maybe the protest veterans now mired in their very own acerbic post-mortems also needs to ask themselves the identical query: Are we not too outdated for this? 

Touchdown in our social media feeds up to now days have been stones thrown at one another by activists from all shades and blocs within the Philippine Left and amongst Liberals within the aftermath of the two anti-corruption rallies that they organized on November 30. The Philippines faces its greatest corruption scandal in historical past — throwing the economic system in a match, scaring away buyers, angering residents throughout lessons and ages, and unmasking a la-la land presidency. 

That is the Marcos administration’s Tremendous Hurricane Yolanda, the catastrophe that introduced the previous Noynoy Aquino administration to its knees greater than a decade in the past and killed all prospects of continuity.

It additionally occurs to be a once-in-a-lifetime second for a protest motion that was maimed and constricted beneath the earlier Duterte regime. Whereas extrajudicial killings in Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal drug conflict fueled discontent that mobilized sure sectors, activists confronted persistent and deadly state harassment in all varieties, limiting areas for recruitment. 

At this time, the protest motion shouldn’t be set again by the identical challenges. No matter troubles they’re having now are self-inflicted.

This got here in full show the morning after the November 30 rallies in Luneta and EDSA, when anti-corruption teams unleashed their fangs towards one another in protection of how and the place they stand vis-a-vis the Marcos authorities. Resign all, together with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte, was the slogan carried by the protesters that gathered in Luneta.

We’re not in Luneta, declared Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David from his pulpit earlier than a throng of protesters at EDSA, as a result of we’re not able to make the identical name. He raised considerations that proposals for a transition council may very well be weaponized by sectors aiming for an extra-constitutional path to resolve the disaster.

The dam broke.

The ugliness of the yesteryears, the unnecessary bickerings, the one-upmanships wearing ideological discourse, the sloganeering and name-calling — they got here in fast succession from the Natdems, the Socdems, the goddems, and the parents in between. 

These brickbats would thrill any journalist chronicling the unravelling of this era, however they infuriate us who’ve witnessed all of that within the final 4 many years of the protest motion’s speckled previous. There have been onerous classes from these years, which ought to have been realized by now. However nada.

At this time’s anti-corruption blocs are so caught up within the cloud that carries their endgames and tactical objectives and self-infatuation, that they might not rise above them, couldn’t assist however obsess in regards to the finish of the tunnel as a substitute of the troublesome however mandatory steps that result in it.

No starvation for radical collaboration

Let’s face it: the organized blocs that mounted the Luneta and EDSA rallies on November 30 see this era as a chance to broaden their base, add heft to their political muscle, and shield no matter they’ve earned over time — whether or not these are party-list seats, dominance in key sectors, sticky, smash-the-state messaging for the GenZ, or broad open areas the place they might agitate, manage, mobilize.

There’s no starvation for radical collaboration, even when the occasions name for it, as a result of, I believe, lots of them determine they don’t want it at this level.

Which is true to an extent, however unhappy and annoying, proper? 

The political system that breeds the grasping, the dynasts, and the sycophants is crumbling proper earlier than the very eyes of those veteran activists. And but, they might not even maintain troublesome conversations that would deliver a few significant consensus on concrete steps for the right here and now — and for the close to future. 

Mae Paner, who’s exerted efforts to deliver these disparate teams collectively, advised John Nery on this week’s episode of The Public Sq., that they naturally have totally different desired outcomes in these protests. However they might have no less than provide you with a minimal agenda for unity, she stated.

Which did occur earlier, on September 21, when the totally different blocs held a joint press convention to convey one message — holding officers to account and punishing them. We have to remind ourselves that even at that time, they’d already chosen to carry separate rallies: EDSA and Luneta (and everyone knows what occurred later in Mendiola). But, hundreds of unorganized Filipinos marched with them, those that didn’t know, nor cared for, the bottled-up divisions wracking the organized.

We assumed they’d spend the next weeks consolidating for an even bigger push and finding out variations for a tactical objective to construct extra stress on public officers with concrete calls to motion shared by all. However the violence at Mendiola on September 21, and the fixed ghost of destabilization, could have partly doomed any of these initiatives. 

Marcos, Sara or none in any respect?

After which the penultimate query. What’s a fascinating endgame for these protests, when each Marcos and Duterte had grown unpalatable to the anti-corruption motion? Maybe a transition council of multi-sectoral teams that may assist craft modifications within the basic legislation of the land and suggest structural reforms to systemic issues? Honest sufficient, sure? 

Besides that is primarily based on the belief that Marcos and Duterte would step down. Confronted with a squabbling protest motion that may’t get its act collectively, why would they? 

Isn’t this as clear as day? 

What’s the purpose of a motion’s name to carry everybody accountable when its leaders can’t even take the daring step of turning that right into a single message in a single massive stage, beneath one massive banner, in a single massive present of pressure?

Why even dare to think about a transition council of numerous teams when one can’t even deliver the identical teams to barter divergent agendas behind closed doorways so they might put up a united entrance over the few, but vital, issues they agree on? Backed by public anger, they might set calls for with the powers-that-be and, ought to they fail, can then rightfully elevate plans to the subsequent.

Why use the navy once more because the bogeyman when there isn’t any actual menace emanating from that establishment exterior the angst of bored pensioners and retired generals and the cynicism of troopers they’d as soon as misled and mismanaged? 

Recall that the final time the protest motion helped oust a president, Joseph “Erap” Estrada, within the 2001 EDSA II revolt, numerous teams stood aspect by aspect at EDSA at the same time as they carried clashing placards and didn’t like one another. They proved they may very well be frenemies in a single stage for one frequent objective. (An earlier model of the story stated Sanlakas members have been at EDSA. However we have been corrected; solely their banner was there. Picture above is taken from a narrative on Newsbreak Journal in January 2011.)

However EDSA II had two parts that fast-tracked it: a comparatively acceptable vice chairman, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who was ready within the wings and had a core staff that opened talks and negotiated with the protest motion, and a defense-military institution that was led by males with sufficient gravitas, command, and political instincts: the late basic Angelo Reyes and then-defense chief Orlando Mercado. 

Everyone knows how that transition went south. Arroyo later cracked down on the Left and Reyes shot himself to loss of life over corruption allegations.

None of those are current in at this time’s disaster. Which is the purpose.

This time round, the protest motion is in a singular place to point out that it’s able to taking the lead — armed with shared plans which might be each doable and long-term, gifted with an creativeness that tears down partitions, boosted with the flexibility to provide room to younger blood, and blessed with the stamina to speak, disagree, discuss once more, and construct.

However that may very well be asking, or anticipating, an excessive amount of, no? – Rappler.com