Arroyo claims wounds of EDSA partially healed

Speaking at the 24th anniversary celebration of the 1986 People Power uprising, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Thursday claimed that her goal to heal the wounds of the past EDSA uprisings have been met, at least partially. President Arroyo said that most of those who opposed her are now seeking change in a peaceful way. "A few years ago I declared that one of our goals is to heal the wounds of EDSA. To some extent, but necessarily to the extent we wanted, we have achieved this to some extent. Most of those who used violence to express their opposition have had change of heart and are now working with mainstream society to fast-track our growth. The few who have vowed to fight constitutional authority, many of them are now seeking their own place in our political system, placing themselves under the rules of the Constitution," she said. But Mrs. Arroyo, the beneficiary of a second People Power revolt in 2001, lamented People Power had "gained a partisan meaning which started to divide the nation once more."

Security, traffic Radio dzBB's Mao dela Cruz reported that Presidential guards and police secured a portion of EDSA in front of the People Power Monument. President Arroyo arrived near the monument at about 7:30 a.m. for the early morning rites that opened with a flag-raising ceremony. Former President Fidel Ramos also arrived for the event. Other personalities at the rites included Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, and Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) chairman Oscar Inocentes. Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr., and former Senator Agapito "Butz" Aquino were also present, the report said. Personnel and crowd dispersal units from the Presidential Security Group, MMDA and Quezon City police secured the People Power Monument, which was closed for the early morning program. Mrs. Arroyo was the main beneficiary of the second EDSA people power uprising, which ousted then President Joseph Estrada in January 2001. Ramos succeeded the late former President Corazon "Cory" Aquino, who was catapulted to power in the EDSA-1 that ousted then President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. EDSA-1 spirit ‘fading’ Twenty-four years after the EDSA-1 popular uprising that restored democratic institutions in the country, its participants lamented the “fading" People Power spirit which, according to them, is needed now more than ever to save the country from its darkest hours. Retired Manila bishop Teodoro Bacani Jr. said Filipinos have become "frustrated and discouraged" because of bad socio-economic conditions in the country. "I would not say the EDSA spirit has faded but people are frustrated and discouraged as you can see with the number of Filipinos leaving to work abroad," Bacani said in an interview posted on the Union of Catholic Asian News Website. Bacani was one of the Catholic bishops who took part in the 1986 uprising. The late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin had rallied people to support officials and soldiers who turned against the Marcos administration. At the time, Catholic bishops of the Philippines, headed by now Cebu Archbishop Ricardo Cardinal Vidal, had just issued a pastoral statement declaring Marcos’ continued rule immoral in the wake of election fraud. “Imelda Marcos went at night to Cardinal Vidal to appeal to bishops not to issue the letter, but it was too late," Bacani recalled. But now, Bacani said those who took over after EDSA, including a similar revolt in 2001, had disappointed the people. “Those who took over after EDSA disappointed [the] people so much. (Mrs.) Arroyo did so much to stifle and disregard the expression of public opinion," he said. For her part, former Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said Catholic bishops have become divided under the Arroyo administration as well. "The Catholic Bishops hierarchy has really become not that credible because they’re also divided," she said. She cited the CBCP’s "silence and unclear responses" to scandals involving Arroyo’s administration and claimed this was because many bishops were "tainted and tempted by favors and donations to projects against poverty." Soliman and Bishop Bacani both agree that the hope for more effective role of the Church in pushing forward the gains of people power lies in lay people, not the bishops. Symbol of unfulfilled hopes The militant umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), meanwhile, lamented the abuses that led to the 1986 revolt have worsened. "Twenty-four years after EDSA-1, the Philippines is in far worse straits. The Arroyo regime, using state security forces, perpetrates human rights abuses like extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance, torture and illegal arrest and detention in a systematic manner and with seemingly boundless impunity," it said in a statement. Corruption is rampant at all levels of government, with the First Family involved in several high-profile corruption scandals, it added. Millions of Filipinos remain landless and homeless, and continue to live below even subsistence level, while a few live like kings and queens, Bayan said. For its part, the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines said the people now face "the very same enemy" that they toppled in February 1986. Priests and nuns of the AMRSP also took part in the peaceful revolt that ousted Marcos and installed Mrs. Aquino to power. "We simply must not sit idly in one corner looking at another conjugal dictatorship stealing the wealth of our people and continually disregarding the tenets of justice and righteousness which we, as Church, are supposed to protect and defend," the ARMSP said in an article posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines Website. AMRSP lamented the dreams that EDSA promised never materialized as the atrocities that the people of 1986 fought have even grown worse. — LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV