My family was in Metro Manila last weekend and one of the things we asked our 17-year-old daughter was if she wanted to be at EDSA to take part in the “Trillion Peso March” protests, which were scheduled just before we were to go back to Silay on Sunday.
Her answer was a quick yes, so after going to mass and having an early lunch, we were dropped off near the EDSA Shrine and we walked around the area to soak in the vibe of the protest march that was starting to form. We were there early at around noon, as the official start of the protest in that area, which was the EDSA Shrine near Robinsons Galleria and People Power Monument near White Plains, was still 2pm. But we had an afternoon flight to catch back to Silay, so we couldn’t really stay long.
Anyway, we found a nice vantage point at the pedestrian walkway where we got to see the crowd form, joined in the cheering, jeering, and chanting against corruption. Senators Bam Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan, as well as Representatives Leila de Lima passed right under our overpass and even waved back at my companions who were screaming their lungs out. We were also looking for Chel Diokno’s teeth, but couldn’t make him out in the sea of protesting faces.
Although it started out not-so-big, the crowd eventually swelled to a pretty big one as the march started to get underway, and although the girls would’ve stayed longer, we had to leave by around 2pm as we still had a flight to catch back to Silay later in the afternoon, and given the unpredictability of the traffic situation due to the multiple protests, we had to leave for the airport earlier than usual.
On our way back to our in-laws in Mandaluyong, my wife and I looked at each other and worried a bit that maybe we had radicalized our daughter. If it’s any consolation, a bit radical is better than another apathetic Filipino.
That Sunday was also the 53rd anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, so it was weird to be protesting corruption on that very day, under a government that was led by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the dictator himself. What made it weird was this time, despite coinciding with the Martial Law anniversary, that protest action had the implicit support of the current Marcos administration. It felt much safer and less antagonistic to see that the cops deployed there weren’t in riot gear, not in full tactical gear with matching long firearms, but they were their peace time blues, which is something I have missed seeing them in, ever since they thought it was cool to cosplay in camouflage and tactical vests all throughout their dubious war on drugs era, when we were given the impression that cops are scary killers that you don’t mess, with instead of being the approachable peacekeepers and public servants that they were meant to be.
It was also nice to see so many angry people at a peaceful protest march, because after all the Duterte administration did to make protesting uncool and turn the Filipino apathetic, Sunday’s crowds showed that Filipinos have not yet been cowed into the submission and apathy that the corrupt would prefer from their constituents. It is important to remain the type of people who are capable of the righteous anger that is necessary to scare our leaders into doing the right thing, to remind them that they cannot get away with wrongdoing, that we are the bosses, and that they are accountable to us, a people who do get tired of eating the leftover shit that they have been feeding us, while they pick the choice cuts for themselves. Hopefully something good and sustainable is instituted because of the protests.
However, if you come to think of it, even if we hold massive protests every weekend, the burden of action ultimately lies with those in government service, particularly its upper echelons. All the protests in the world will result in nothing if it falls on deaf and corrupt ears of people in power who know that if they remain patient, give us a few wins and some small fish, they should be able to simply wait it out, as Filipinos can have a ridiculously short attention span. We even have a word for it: ‘ningas cogon.’
If you come to think of it even more, a big protest every now and then is good, but the ultimate legal protest is already baked into our democracy. The only problem is that we fail to use it properly. Elections are when we can choose leaders that are not corrupt at the very least, but our track record when it comes to voting has been disappointing so far. Do we vote like morons because it is more fun to protest on the streets every once in a while, rather than doing our research properly before casting our votes, so we don’t have to protest against corruption and incompetence anymore?*
