ITS ALL THE RAGE: POPULAR UPRISINGS

AND PHILIPPINE DEMOCRACY

*



I. INTRODUCTION

In February 1986, millions of Filipinos gathered at a major thoroughfare in
Metro Manila to defy the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. After four days of
protest they forced Marcos into exile as he relinquished his twenty-one-year hold
on power. In February 2001, millions of Filipinos staged another four-day protest
that shortened President Joseph Estradas six-year term of office to a mere thirty-
one months. A few months later, a third gathering attended by millions of Filipinos
called for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. After four days of
protest, this demonstration ended with a violent clash with the police in front of the
presidential palace.

This practice of removing Presidents by popular protest in the Philippines is
known as people power.
1
It hovers over the political horizon as a reminder to
incumbent public officials that election results in the Philippines are subject to a
subsequent veto by the people and that public officials can be recalled through
spontaneous popular uprisings.

People power is regarded as the epicenter of a democracy movement that
spread outward from Manila, toppling authoritarian governments including the
Suharto regime of Indonesia in 1998.
2
This democratic revolution is credited
with spawning other popular uprisings in South Korea, Pakistan, Burma and
Eastern Europe,
3
and supposedly unleashed the pro-democracy tide that swept . . .
the rest of the world.



*
Its All the Rage: Popular Uprisings and Philippine Democracy, 15 Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal. 1-37 (2006).
1
People power is the term initially used to describe the four-day non-violent popular demonstration that started on February
22, 1986, on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in Manila. The demonstrations followed a conspicuously fraudulent
presidential election and played a decisive part in persuading President Ferdinand Marcos to leave the Philippines and live in
exile in the United States. See MICHAEL LEIFER, DICTIONARY OF THE MODERN POLITICS OF SOUTH-EAST ASIA
186 (1995). EDSA is a major road in Metro Manila that served as the setting for this display of opposition to the Marcos regime
which allowed Corazon Aquino to assume the presidency. Id. at 91.
2
Vincent Boudreau, Diffusing Democracy? People Power in Indonesia and the Philippines, 31 BULLETIN OF CONCERNED ASIAN
SCHOLARS 3 (1999).
3
Thomas M. Franck, Seizing the Moment: Creative and Incremental Thinking about Global Systemic Opportunity, 22 N.Y.U.J.
INTL.L. & POL. 601, 623-624 (1990).