Civil disobedience vs Arroyo may build up after Cory burial

Filipinos' collective grief over former president Corazon Aquino’s death may snowball into political moves that may include acts of civil disobedience against the Arroyo administration, according to veterans of successful movements to oust previous leaders. Civil disobedience is a form of nonviolent resistance against laws, demands, or commands of a government as practiced by India’s Mahatma Gandhi against British rulers in their former colony. The action – the very same effort used by the late president to help topple the Marcos dictatorship – may take place nine days after the former leader’s burial, said Pastor "Boy" Saycon, secretary-general of the Council on Philippine Affairs (COPA), the group that helped depose President Joseph Estrada in January 2001. “Several events will call for this [kind of action]," Saycon told GMANews.TV on Tuesday night, the last day of the beloved leader’s wake at the Manila Cathedral. He refused to be specific. “Heightened emotions" currently being felt by Filipinos over the democracy icon’s death will further the fight for good governance, he explained, as the rain poured on thousands outside waiting to get a glimpse of Mrs. Aquino’s remains. “The struggle for better government will take on another form and another phase," he added, saying the Arroyo administration “will be killed by kindness." At the same time, Saycon dismissed “radical moves," which besides being “farfetched," goes against Mrs. Aquino’s principles. Earlier efforts to coordinate the COPA’s moves with the military have ended in failure, he admitted. “We cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to take a stronger position over prayer and that is the legacy of Mrs. Aquino," he said. “COPA has been reactivated," Saycon added, referring to the group which counts Aquino’s brother, Jose “Peping" Cojuangco, as member. A former Tarlac representative, Cojuangco is currently the president of the Philippine Olympic Committee. In 1985, Mrs. Aquino called for civil disobedience against the Marcos regime that would later force the dictator to call for snap elections the year after. In 1986, Marcos, his family members, and cronies would be exiled in Hawaii, owing to a people power uprising that began with a boycott of products made by Marcos' crony companies. Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, president of the United Opposition, also thinks that the Filipinos’ overwhelming sympathy for Mrs. Aquino will translate into political action. Binay observed that the crowd that gathered on Ayala Avenue and at the Manila Cathedral on Monday for Mrs. Aquino seemed “much bigger" than the people who went to see former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy’ Aquino’s remains when these were transferred to Sto. Domingo Church in 1983. “There might be some upheaval. Baka (Maybe) everything will be put in their proper places," he told GMANews.TV in another interview. Binay said UNO would be talking to other groups and “see if we can put our acts together." Corazon “Dinky" Soliman, a key figure in the movement that ousted former president Estrada and ex-cabinet member under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, also sees political action taking shape. She says the Filipinos’ expression of grief for Mrs. Aquino “is also an expression of what she stands for." “That means Filipinos believe in President Aquino’s positions about democracy, about not changing the Constitution… of having an honest, fair, and clean presidential elections on May 10, 2010," Soliman said. Now a stalwart of the anti-Arroyo Black and White movement, she said the shape of the “collective" action and what it would entail “will really depend on the Filipino people." - RJA Basilio Jr., ARC Sabangan, GMANews.TV