On August 26, which was National Heroes Day, reportedly to 75,000 Filipinos braved rain and mud to stage a Facebook-coordinated rally in the iconic Luneta Park in the old city of Manila, with participants calling for the prosecution of corrupt officials, the abolition of the pork barrel system, and an overhaul of the country’s creaking political institutions, which have been mired in scandal after scandal throughout recent decades. Concurrent rallies across the country and beyond supported the Manila gathering, with thousands of fellow citizens expressing their anger against the impotence of the country’s leadership amid massive corruption. It marked the strongest show of force by the civil society against the perceived greed and incompetence of the political elite. As far back as the “Martial Law” years in the 1970s, the Philippines has witnessed a spate of popular mobilizations for democratic change and political reform, culminating in the 1986 “People Power” Revolution, which toppled the Marcos regime. A distinct characteristic of the August “Million People March,” however, was its seemingly post-ideological characteristic, making it extremely similar to recent protests in places such as Turkey and Brazil, where thousands of youthful, educated middle class citizens took to the streets to demand accountability and reform. The “Million People March” in Manila was largely organized through social networking sites, with Facebook and Twitter serving as the main platforms of exchanging views, planning, and information dissemination. The main actors were the “netizens” instead of traditional political operators. The loose network of informal organizers was consciously anti-ideological, explicitly disparaging left or progressive groups and calling for a slogan-free rally. In fact, in the run up to as well as during the rally itself, there were no visible signs of a central leadership or a steering organization of any sort — political figures were either discouraged from attending or cautioned against making any parochial speech. The sheer size and relative spontaneity of the rallies also served as a clear signal that the Aquino’s historic-high approval-ratings don’t equate to civic passivity. In the words of American scholar Francis Fukuyama, the rally should be seen as how “no established democracy should believe it can rest on its laurels, simply because it holds elections and has leaders who do well in opinion polls.”
Posted on: Thu, 05 Sep 2013 00:00:08 +0000
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