The People Power Revolution, Philippines 1986

For a moment, everything seemed possible. From February 22 to 25, 1986, hundreds of thousands of
Filipinos gathered on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue to protest President Ferdinand Marcos and his claim
that he had won re-election over Corazon Aquino.

Soon, Marcos and his family were forced to abdicate power and leave the Philippines. Many were
optimistic that the Philippines, finally rid of the dictator, would adopt policies to address the economic
and social inequalities that had only increased under Marcos’s twenty-year rule. This People Power
Revolution surprised and inspired anti-authoritarian (equality) activists around the world.

Ferdinand Marcos had been president of the Philippines since 1965. After declaring martial law in 1972,
he suspended and eventually rewrote the Philippine constitution, curtailed civil liberties, and
concentrated power in the executive branch and among his closest allies. Marcos had tens of thousands
of opponents arrested and thousands tortured, killed, or disappeared.

For two decades, Filipinos lived under authoritarian rule while Marcos and his allies enriched themselves
through ownership of Philippine press and industry outlets (Rustan, San Miguel, Manila Bulletin)and
through the siphoning of funds from U.S., World Bank, (187 countries) and International Monetary Fund
(UN)loans.

The People Power movement had been building since well before Marcos’s declaration of martial law.
Committed activists who organized underground in the Philippines, in exile, and in the diaspora worked
tirelessly to broadcast news of the Marcoses’ human rights violations and ill-gotten wealth (illegally
acquired wealth) globally.

For many years, however, much of the world—the U.S. government in particular—was perfectly willing
to overlook the corruption of the Marcoses in exchange for an anti-Communist bulwark in Southeast
Asia.

By the mid-1980s, however, foreign policy calculations had shifted against Marcos in crucial ways.

The August 1983 assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was seen by many around the world as a
particularly brazen act of political retribution. Furthermore, rumors about Marcos’s health (he was
suffering from lupus and regularly undergoing dialysis at the time) led many of his allies in the
Philippines and beyond to begin speculating about the dictator’s successors.

When Ferdinand Marcos boldly called for a “snap election” in a 1985 interview with David Brinkley,
Marcos’s opponents weighed whether this was an opportunity or a trap. Many times before, Marcos had
tipped the electoral balances in his favor, through a rewriting of laws, outright violence, and other forms
of manipulation and intimidation.

Much of the Philippine Left decided to boycott the election, fearful that participation would only serve to
further legitimize the regime. The remainder of the opposition movement eventually coalesced around
the widow of Senator Aquino, Corazon “Cory” Aquino.

Just as many feared, Marcos claimed victory in the election. This time, though, Filipinos refused to
accept this lie. On February 22, citizens took to the streets on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA).
Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Archbishop of Manila, called upon Filipinos to support the peaceful protests.
Marcos ordered the military to repress the mass action. However, a faction of military officers refused to
clamp down on the protestors and chose instead to defect. This group included soldiers who had grown
frustrated with corruption in the military and the Marcos regime and had earlier formed the Reform the
Armed Forces Movement (RAM).

When Marcos ordered the military to arrest detractors, Cardinal Sin called upon the people to shield
them. The Catholic radio organ, Radio Veritas, became a major control center for protest
communications during the People Power movement.

Close Marcos ally President Ronald Reagan eventually sent word through Senator Paul Laxalt that it was
time to “cut, and cut cleanly,” signaling that Marcos no longer had the backing of his most powerful ally.
On the evening of February 25, the U.S. government facilitated Marcos’s escape to Hawaii, where he
would remain until his death in 1989.

Later that same night, protestors stormed Malacañang Palace, exposing the opulent wealth that the
Marcos family had amassed during their time in power. As Corazon Aquino was sworn in as President,
Filipinos were hailed around the world as an example of peaceful revolution and the restoration of
democracy.

The road ahead would not be so simple, however. In the years since 1986, the legacy of the People
Power Revolution has remained uncertain. Aquino faced several coup attempts during her time in power,
many of them led by the very same RAM that had helped facilitate her rise to power.

The agricultural and economic reform that many Filipinos hoped for in a post-Marcos world did not
come. Peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines dissolved and leftists continued to be
maligned, attacked, and hunted.

Many Filipinos expressed nostalgia for the very dictator that had been overthrown. And there have been
ongoing projects of historical revisionism in the Philippines that sanitized the Marcos years.

The Marcos family have returned to the Philippines and to positions of political prominence: Ferdinand
Marcos’s widow Imelda became a congresswoman and his daughter Imee a governor. Ferdinand
“Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the dictator’s son and evident successor to his father’s legacy, ran for vice
president in 2016 and finished a close second. Bongbong refused to concede and, to this day, continues
his legal challenges to the election.

The most concerning outcome of the 2016 Philippine elections, however, was the election of Rodrigo
Duterte as president. A close ally of the Marcoses, Duterte has drawn upon Marcos’s script for
authoritarian power. He has arrested prominent opponents, curtailed civil liberties, and claimed that
discipline is what is most needed for the Philippine nation.

Most infamously, Duterte launched a campaign that has resulted in tens of thousands of extrajudicial
murders committed by police and military forces.

The People Power Movement offers several lessons. We can see the courageous solidarities and
coalitions that might mobilize against authoritarian restrictions on civil liberties. But we must also look at
the importance of finding ways to build anew and address the grievances and injustices that have made
such authoritarians so popular in the first place.
The EDSA protests in 1986 were a remarkable moment in Philippine history, a moment filled with the
sense of unlimited hope and possibility. And for those with democratic dreams, it provides both a lesson
and a warning for the battles ahead.