Philippines
A woman ended the reign of one Marcos. Now eyes are fixed on whether a woman will deny the presidential bid of another
Philippine Vice President and opposition presidential candidate Leni Robredo greets supporters during a campaign rally coinciding with her birthday in Pasay, suburban Manila, on April 23. (Photo: AFP)
In the 2016 Philippine vice-presidential race, the last man standing was a woman, shaming five male candidates: Alan Peter Cayetano, Francis Escudero, Gregorio Honasan, Antonio Trillanes IV and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Exactly six years ago, Leni Robredo garnered a total of 14,418,817 votes, edging out Marcos Jr. by 263,473 votes.
Robredo was declared the winner based on the official count of Congress sitting as the National Board of Canvassers. Despite desperate appeals by Marcos to postpone the proclamation, Robredo took her oath of office and was formally inaugurated as vice president on June 30, 2016.
Marcos Jr. couldn’t accept defeat from the lady from Bicol, cried foul and protested that he was cheated. The Supreme Court, sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, unanimously dismissed his protest in 2021.
Marcos Jr. did not stop telling the public he was cheated. During his election campaign in Batangas last month for the upcoming presidential poll, the Ilocano politician in jest and alluding to his loss against Robredo said that, on Election Day on May 9, he will send tons of three-in-one coffee so that nobody falls asleep, adding that “so many things happen at night.”
Citizens are just bewildered, entertained, or both, asking the quintessential question: Between Marcos Jr. and Robredo, who is capable of and had the excess wealth to manipulate the outcome of an election?
“Now is the time to repair the wrong. The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction. But as in the election itself, that depends fully on the people; on what they are willing and ready to do”
Going back to the 1986 snap election called by Ferdinand Marcos Sr., the last man standing in the presidential race was a woman when the icon of Philippine democracy, Cory Aquino, defeated the late dictator.
Pressured by the international community to legitimize his regime, Marcos Sr. called a snap presidential election on Feb 7, 1986, and did not waste time in mobilizing his nationalist party, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan, and fortifying his political machinery.
Congress proclaimed victory for Marcos but the Catholic Church called it “evil” due to massive poll fraud, believing that Marcos cheated.
The National Movement for Free Elections showed Aquino in the lead with almost 70 percent of the votes counted.
On Feb. 13, 1986, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) declared the poll a blatant fraud.
When “a government does not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people,” the Filipino prelates said that year, “then it is our serious moral obligation as a people to make it do so.”
When the CBCP statement condemning the 1986 election, signed by its President Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, went public, the dictator knew he was in a serious face-off with a formidable institution that dared to challenge his legitimacy.
“Now is the time to speak up. Now is the time to repair the wrong. The wrong was systematically organized. So must its correction. But as in the election itself, that depends fully on the people; on what they are willing and ready to do,” the bishops told Marcos.
When the Marcoses used the well-oiled machinery to win the people’s trust, they failed. When they attacked the “total ignorance and inexperience in state affairs” of Cory Aquino, they failed.
There, Cory Aquino launched a civil disobedience campaign, calling for a nationwide boycott of the corporations and industries associated with Marcos and his cronies
The Filipino people did recognize the truth that Marcos manipulated the results and that a simple housewife won the presidency. Soon the international community would recognize the victory of the first woman Philippine president.
As the late Archbishop Oscar V. Cruz put it so aptly: “Truth is a formidable enemy. Suppress it and it does not disappear. Hide it and it shows itself sooner or later. Muffle the truth and it ultimately manages to be heard. Truth is a big problem for those who lie and deceive. Truth does not only survive the lie and the deception. It even outlives the liar and the deceiver.”
When Marcos Sr. insisted on his legitimate authority, the government of-by-for the people ruled and the democratic process ran its course.
In his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, number 46, St. John Paul II wrote something significant about the democratic process and peaceful revolution. Our Polish pope exhorted all global citizens: “The Church values the democratic system inasmuch as it ensures the participation of citizens in making political choices, guarantees to the governed the possibility both of electing and holding accountable those who govern them, and of replacing them through peaceful means when appropriate.”
Marcos Sr. did not concede to the will of the people. Almost similar to India’s Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March in 1930 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March for Freedom in Washington DC in 1963, Corazon Aquino held the Tagumpay ng Bayan (Victory of the Town) rally at Rizal Park 10 days after the election. It was intended like Gandhi and King intended their own rallies to be.
The unprecedented rally was attended by a crowd of about two million people. There, Cory Aquino launched a civil disobedience campaign, calling for a nationwide boycott of the corporations and industries associated with Marcos and his cronies.
In those fateful days in February 1986, in and out of the Malacanan Palace by the Pasig River was Marcos henchman General Fabian Ver, who was fuming
On Feb. 22, 1986, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel V. Ramos called a press conference where they announced that they regretted being on the side of the tyrant and that they had withdrawn their support from the dictatorial government.
In those fateful days in February 1986, in and out of the Malacanan Palace by the Pasig River was Marcos henchman General Fabian Ver, who was fuming.
He promised to pulverize those who revolted against his master. The 250,000-strong armed forces were ready to follow the orders of General Ver, their chief of staff.
Then, the people heard over Radio Veritas, “This is Cardinal Sin speaking …” And as they say, the rest is history.
When the Marcos dictatorship was toppled by people power through peaceful means, it was a clear manifestation of the solid participation of citizens to bring back authentic democracy that was lost during the Marcos regime.
Will Filipinos repeat history, meaning that the last man standing in this presidential race will be a woman? If and when the people feel they were cheated, will they do what they did in 1986?
* Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano is the author of ‘MCMLXXII: 500-Taong Kristiyano, Volume Two’ (Claretian, 2021) and ‘24 PLUS CONTEMPORARY PEOPLE: God Writing Straight with Twists and Turns’ (Claretian, 2019). The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.
Latest News
Credit: Source link
