In terms of how the video was executed it is done flawlessly, not to mention puts forward an alternative to what history tells us.
However, its claims of the two truths that the media is not telling us are also at best half-truths that paint someone like Marcos as a selfless icon of progress. The experience of totalitarian regimes and the systems implemented by folks of the same vein would tell us that if only buildings delineate the hearts and minds of people but progress cannot be merely defined in terms of infrastructure and administration of systems it involves more than that.
True the first People Power Revolution may not have actually enacted changes that we hoped it would bring. Yet, it still stands as the best expression of what can be met if people would be mature enough to seize democratic space for enacting change.
What it did was put a big question mark to the status quo of Marcos who would want to shape the Philippines according to his own image. The Philippines' is not Marcos, nor is it the 2% of the Philippine population gathered at EDSA. But the People Power uprising paved the way to reclaim space for concerned citizens to seize democratic space to remind the powers-that-be of who's really in charge of a nation --the people. It establishes the value of collective action to topple the dictatorship using a weapon that is not within the arsenal of Marcos --that is non-violent direct action, an example which served as a prototype to other non-violent uprisings around the world including those that ended totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe and captured the imagination of the protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989. It empowered Filipinos to claim ownership of their place in history as a people that can do great things if they would chose to act upon their discontent.
It is a milestone in the grand historical narrative of the Philippines, a country that is still in the process of maturing politically.
Our politics may not be as mature as we would want it if we are to base it on the standards of countries that we look up to in the West. Maturity is a process and the indifferent response of the many is exactly what is hindering us from maturing. In fact it is our indifference that slows down our process of making our democracy work for us more efficiently. By choosing not to participate in the democracy we immediately veto our value as citizens that would perhaps turn the tide in our collective discontent with business-as-usual.
Does this mean that we should just concede to the status quo of corruption, economic collapse and patronage politics because we cling to romantic promises of historical events? Should we therefore just be content with being passive observers in history, politics and society at large, in spite of what we see in the streets, the news and in our conversations with people?
That's what the video seems to cut across with this message.
While the other is its boorish fear of communism, I am not a communist but I do believe the present system makes it a viable alternative for the many people who are living in the margins. After all, taking up arms against the government is not something that one does on a whim. It is something that comes out as a last resort to how the world that is made up of institutions, systems and power relations make us meet our needs.
But with the way things are going for the workers, peasants and urban poor it is a difficult and painful decision that they are forced to make because of a neglectful and abusive government bolstered by condescending pseudo-intellectuals and the smartass likes of those who choose to just brand their fellow Filipinos as ‘apes’ and ‘monkeys’ on YouTube.
Perhaps the challenge for us is to prove those who made it wrong, that we can and we must rage against the dying of the light being passive whiners and armchair commentators of our political systems. Otherwise we put in vain the efforts of the man nameless, faceless people who responded to that faint whisper for justice --peacefully.
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