Filipinos reaped praise worldwide for using peaceful "people power" to oust dictator Ferdinand Marcos and restore democracy in 1986. But 15 years later, they were criticized for using the same tactics to force out President Joseph Estrada midway through the six-year term he won with the widest margin in Philippine history.
Filipinos head to the polls again today in a race seen as so close that millions of voters will likely be dissatisfied with the outcome. Some wonder whether the nation can accept the results without another "people power" revolt.
The hope is that Filipinos are now politically mature enough to accept the result and let the democratic institutions and legal system resolve any conflicts.
"For me, after the second one -- that's enough," said taxi driver Daniel Original, who was only 7 when Marcos was toppled. "If we have another one, it won't look good anymore."
Even though Estrada's ouster was legitimized by a Supreme Court ruling, critics say his fate should have been determined by an impeachment trial that stalled after opposition prosecutors walked out in a protest over the pro-Estrada Senate majority blocking crucial evidence.
Conditions in the Philippines do not inspire confidence that it will remain free of upheavals.
Shortly after Estrada exited through the back door, there was a foiled bid by tens of thousands of his supporters to storm the presidential palace to oust his successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. A group of disgruntled military men staged a brief, failed mutiny last July.
Just days ahead of today's polling, the national security adviser claimed that opposition figures are already plotting to stir up trouble if they lose.
If Estrada had stayed in office, the election would have chosen his successor. Instead, it pits Arroyo against Fernando Poe Jr., an action film star and close friend of Estrada, with three other candidates given scant chance of success.
Political commentator Benito Lim, a former Asian studies professor, traces the roots of mass protests to a failure by the nation's elite to solve the gripping social ills of poverty, corruption, an underdeveloped economy, sharply unequal distribution of wealth and lack of opportunities.
After decades of control by an ineffective upper class, Filipino "people power" emerged as a "tribal gathering to oust a person they hate," Lim said.
"It has never been a genuine revolution of a common desire to institute common programs addressing issues and problems of the republic," Lim said.
Arroyo's political adviser, Joey Rufino, said the first "people power" revolt -- called the "EDSA revolution" or "EDSA 1" after the Manila highway where it took place -- was staged against dictatorship. The second, dubbed "EDSA 2," took aim at "corruption and bad governance," Rufino said.
The 1986 revolt revived a political system -- modeled after that of former colonial power the US -- that prevailed before Marcos imposed martial law in 1972 and started his one-man rule. People took to the streets about two weeks after Marcos purportedly stole an election from opposition candidate Corazon Aquino, and she was swept to power.
Filipinos remember Rufino, now executive director of the ruling Lakas-CMD party, as the man caught by television cameras tearfully pleading with soldiers -- who had been sent by Marcos to quash the uprising -- to instead join the revolt.
Rufino said he's now "too old" for street protests and he hopes the "EDSA 2" movement will be the last.
"We can't keep on going to the streets every time we hate something in government. That would be mob rule or anarchy," he said.
His fear: "One day, everybody will just wish there was a leader that is a strongman. And, then everybody will lose their rights. Everybody will lose their freedoms because they abused them."
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
Floods on Sunday trapped people in vehicles and homes in Spain as torrential rain drenched the northeastern Catalonia region, a day after downpours unleashed travel chaos on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. Local media shared videos of roaring torrents of brown water tearing through streets and submerging vehicles. National weather agency AEMET decreed the highest red alert in the province of Tarragona, warning of 180mm of rain in 12 hours in the Ebro River delta. Catalan fire service spokesman Oriol Corbella told reporters people had been caught by surprise, with people trapped “inside vehicles, in buildings, on ground floors.” Santa Barbara Mayor Josep Lluis
The Venezuelan government on Monday said that it would close its embassies in Norway and Australia, and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the US. The closures are part of the “strategic reassignation of resources,” Venezueland President Nicolas Maduro’s government said in a statement, adding that consular services to Venezuelans in Norway and Australia would be provided by diplomatic missions, with details to be shared in the coming days. The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had received notice of the embassy closure, but no
A missing fingertip offers a clue to Mako Nishimura’s criminal past as one of Japan’s few female yakuza, but after clawing her way out of the underworld, she now spends her days helping other retired gangsters reintegrate into society. The multibillion-dollar yakuza organized crime network has long ruled over Japan’s drug rings, illicit gambling dens and sex trade. In the past few years, the empire has started to crumble as members have dwindled and laws targeting mafia are tightened. An intensifying police crackdown has shrunk yakuza forces nationwide, with their numbers dipping below 20,000 last year for the first time since records