Philippines was controlled for twenty long years of dictatorship government of Ferdinand Marcos from 1965 to 1986. It was only thwarted and overthrew by Corazon Aquino , the wife of late Sen. Benigno Aquino, who then became revolutionary president. Through the support of Radio Veritas, through the backing of Catholic hierarchy led by Archbishop Cardinal Sin, through vigilance and participation of masses of people including parishioners, working-group, middle-class, and professional cohorts, and through defiance of top military leaders, they altogether launched the people power revolution against Marcos government.
What is a peaceful people power revolution? “People power is demonstrated in an amazing way by the power of active but non-violent revolution, it is the power of truth and love. In 1986 millions of unarmed Filipinos surprised the world by nonviolently overthrowing Ferdinand Marcos, known at the time as “the Hitler of Southeast Asia.” (Deats) . According to Dolan, “People were united not by ideology or class interests, but by their esteem for Aquino's widow, Corazon, and their disgust with the Marcos regime.” People power revolution is also popularly known in the Philippine as EDSA revolution. EDSA is the abbreviation of one of the national highways in Metro Manila which mean Efifanio De los Santos. It is the place where exactly the people massed together for people power movement. The assassination of the late Senator Benigno Aquino in 1983 ignited the People power revolution. Although, it was very risky for him to go back to the Philippines, he came home to help restore democracy to the country. His death was treated by his countrymen as a martyrdom and heroism because he directly opposed Mr. Marcos admi...
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...y 25, 1986. The people guaranteed their protection. During the second day of opposition, Mr. Marcos launched tanks to disperse and clear out the crowds along the highway of EDSA. The masses of people actually dwelled in the middle of the street to prevent the tanks to pass. The target of FM was to retaliate against the opposing soldiers outside. (Deats) However, his military soldiers did not follow his orders anymore.
In conclusion, FM faced the truth that his term was over. Even the US was persuading him to leave the country. Finally, FM accepted the situation, and he did not wanted also to have civil war so he concede and flew to Hawaii with the help of US forces. “People were laughing, waving, and hugging each other, singing songs. It was a moment in Filipinos life that never happened before and hopefully will never happen again.” (McGeown, 2011)
... was said to be in first place, Carlos Hevia of the Authentic Party was said to be in second, and Fulgencio Batista of the United Action coalition was said to be running a distant third. To ensure he would hold his former position once more, Batista organized yet another coup to overthrow the administration of President Carlos Prío Socarrás. Three months before the elections, Batista was able to put his plan in motion. On March 10, 1952 Batista, with large help from the military, gained control over buses, rail roads, airports, docks, electricity plants, radio transmitters, banks and offices of government. Press offices were closed, leading activists were arrested, and constitutional guarantees were suspended. He overthrew President Carlos Prío Socarrás, canceled the elections that were to take place, and established a one-party dictatorship with himself as leader.
Revolution – a radical change or replacement of a governmental establishment, political system, or society created by the people who are governed. In the República de Chile (Republic of Chile) and República de Nicaragua (Republic of Nicaragua), a revolution was supposed to bring a new and fresh outlook onto the country unfortunately, with every plan there are obstacles. In spite of the sizeable differences, the revolutions that occurred in Chile and Nicaragua share common traits of failure to consolidate themselves with their power and rebellion. In Chile, the journey to socialism drew its motivation from the oppressed and for Nicaragua; the incapability to centralize power came from an authoritarian point of view. Despite Chile and Nicaragua’s common traits on handling a revolution, they bring their own favors to the table.
Guatemala held democratic elections in 1944 and 1951, they resulted in leftist government groups holding power and rule of the country. Intervention from the United States and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) backed a more conservative military minded regime. A military coup took place in 1954 to over throw the elected government and install the rule of Carlos Castillo Armas. Carlos Armas was a military general before the coup and with the CIA orchestrated operation he was made President from July 8th 1954 until his assassination in 1957. Upon his assassination, similar militant minded presidents rose to power and continued to run the country. Due to the nature of military dictatorship, in 1960, social discontent began to give way to left wing militants made up of the Mayan indigenous people and rural peasantry. This is the match that lit Guatemala’s Civil War, street battles between the two groups tore the country and pressured the autocratic ruler General Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes to fight harder against the civilian insurrection. Similar to the government Abductions th...
William McKinley in 1899 gave a speech regarding why the United States decided to keep the Philippines, when they were "dropped into our laps". Before giving the speech McKinley was burdened by what would be in the best interest of both countries. He gave four very strong points, with reasoning on why "keeping" the Philippines is the best plan of action for the United States to take.
The truth is I didn’t want the Philippines, and when they came to us, as a gift from the gods, I did not know what to do with them.… I sought counsel from all sides— Democrats as well as Republicans—but got little help. I thought first we would take only Manila; then Luzon; then other islands perhaps also. I walked the floor of the White House night after night until midnight; and I am not ashamed to tell you, gentlemen, that I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me this way… that we could not give them back to Spain… that we could not leave them to themselves— they were unfit for self-government… [and] that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God’s grace do the very best we could by them.” (Thomas G. Paterson and Dennis
If something isn’t right, there is a way to fix it. Violence of course is never the answer therefore, non-violent protests were started. Non-Violent protesting had a slow start then it spread around the world when it hit media attention. Non-violent protest also had more effectiveness than violent protests. Non-Violent protests may have taken a while, but the results were successful.
When a government violates the rights and fails to protect its citizens, it is the people’s right to instigate a revolution to revise the government as they see fit. Revolutions especially in the case of complete and utter corruption when leaders of the government are bought by coin and allow injustice to happen, it is the people who must respond and bring the wrongdoers to justice. When a government overreaches its authority and violates its citizen’s rights, the people must rise against tyranny and injustice around them, in doing this they begin the struggle for change in their world. However, in all revolutions the methods and reasons are different. Some fight economic class abuse, some fight government overreach, and others racial prejudice. Three excellent examples of these revolutions are the French Revolution, the American Revolution, and the Civil Rights Movement. By observing these three revolutions, one can see how revolutions make a difference.
Nonviolent protests such as Gandhi’s Indian independence movement (from Britain) have shown to be highly more effective than violent protest.一Even Though, Gandhi was assassinated, his movement was a success and his legacy lived on; he’s much like King in that way.一 In fact, two women, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan did a study on the effectiveness and success rates of nonviolent and violent protest in comparison to each other and wrote a book titled “Why Civil Resistance Works”. The book provides statistics that show that nonviolent protest are a lot more successful than violent protest. Chenoweth and Stephan analyze these statistics alongside results from case studies in different countries. Once they conclude that nonviolent protests are more effective, they proceed to analyze the reason why. They came to the deduced that one reason nonviolent protests are more successful is that more people feel inclined to participate in nonviolent protest because they are not risking their lives or obstructing their values. Another reason they believed nonviolent protests are more successful is that a government is less likely to retaliate against a nonviolent protest because they would lose international support based on conflict of morality. Also, a government overthrown sans violence is more likely to become democratic whereas a government overthrown
Throughout history, there have been multiple occurrences of mass peaceful and civil disobedience that gained momentum and world renown. The successful movement against imperialist Britain led by Gandhi shook the world. The Gandhi-inspired Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King successful in reforming an aspect of American law. These movements, caused turmoil and ended with assassinations despite successfully achieving the movement goals. Peaceful resistance consequently causes negative impacts such as violence, social splits, incarceration, riots, and the abuse of peaceful resistance, although on rare occasions, a civil disobedience movement may be completely justified and grandly successful.
As indicated by Abraham Lincoln: "No man is adequate to administer another man without that other's assent. At the point when the white man administers himself, that is self-government however when he oversees himself furthermore represents another man, that is more than self-government-that is oppression." (Doc. A) He was alluding to the white man's propensity to treat individuals with various skin hues as inferiors, which unquestionably happened in the Philippines. As Albert J. Beveridge brought up in Document B, "would not the general population of the Philippines incline toward the simply, human, socializing legislature of this republic to the savage, ridiculous control… from which we have spared them?" Just, human, cultivating? Strict, one-sided, Christianizing was more similar to it. In these islands, the United States of America at the end of the day committed a similar error it had made with the Native Americans. Discovered that there way was the most ideal way, 'the butcher of the Filipinos' (Doc. An) initiated. Less Filipinos kicked the bucket in the three hundred and thirty-three year Spanish govern than the 1.5 million that fell under America's forty-eight year extension. It would have been more compassionate to leave the Philippines as a different
The year was 1986 and the people of the Philippines were being oppressed by their elected president turned Dictator Ferdinand Marcos for twenty years. And a four-day series of non-violent mass demonstrations toppled Marcos dictatorship. It was a series of popular non violent revolutions and prayerful mass street demonstrations in the Philippines that occurred in 1986, which marked the restoration of the country's democracy. Non violent resistance is the best method to peacefully attain social change in times of political oppression. Non violent resistance is just one teaching of Mahatma Gandhi that was used by the people of Philippine in their times of political oppression and is evident throughout the Philippine revolution of 1986 which helped the country restore democracy.
Generally, textbooks, articles, and essays talk about America’s “occupation,” “supervision” or “intervention” in the Philippines. They seem to be afraid to use the word “colonization.” According to Webster’s Dictionary the definition of colonization is, “The colonial system of political government or extension of territory, by which one nation exerts political control over another nation, territory, or people, maintaining the colony in a state of dependence, its inhabitants not having the same full rights as those of the colonial power. The controlling power is typically extended thus by military force or the threat of force” (6). In his book analyzing Japanese Assimilation Policies in Colonial Korea, Mark Caprio makes a distinction between two different “levels” of colonialism: external and internal. He states that external colonization is what Hannah Arendt calls “overseas imperialism…where their indirect policy exerted minimal effort to forge political, social, or cultural bonds with the peoples under their jurisdiction” (2). Although this is the way the French colonized, the United States seem to adopt the British way of colonizing, which is Caprio’s second level of colonization or internal colonization. This is what Benedict Anderson describes as “inventing nations” (Caprio 2). It requires that the colonial power send ambassadors to impress its culture upon the colony through controlling things such as dialect, media, education, and military (Caprio 2). Caprio also mentions, “The decision to colonize, as well as the administration to administer the colonized, was based primarily on the needs and interests of the colonizer’s subject; those of the colonized object received minimal consideration” (2). Therefore, a colony serves...
I don’t believe the Philippine War was justified. There are more ways than war to solve the annexation of the Philippines. I agree on some of the policies, but not all of the policies, that were in place during that time period.
Section A: Plan of Investigation The main focus of this study is going to be the process of colonization of the Philippines and how the Spanish colonized the Philippines, primarily focusing on the customs and cultures. The pre-colonized and post-colonized Philippines will be discussed and compared with one another to determine the degree of change that occurred with the Filipino culture. The analysis of the information will explain how events that followed colonization erased aspects of the Filipino culture. Much of the information provided will be mainly a collection of scholarly books that describe the Filipino colonization in a contemporary perspective, such as Dolan and Francia.
The Philippines has long been a country with a struggling economy. Ever since World War II, they have struggled to have a steady government and labor system. Independence did not bring any social changes to the country. The hacienda system still persists in the country, where large estates are farmed by sharecroppers. More the half the population are peasants and 20 percent of the population owns 60 percent of the land. Although the sharecropper is supposed to receive half of the harvest, most of the peasant's actual income goes to paying off debts to the landowner. Poverty and conflict strained the industrial growth of the country with many Presidents trying to fix the problems, but failing to do so. Factors that have faced the country are there is almost 9 percent unemployment, and the country suffers from the consequences of a balance of trade deficit. With the resources that the Philippines have, they are capable of pulling themselves out of the economical hole they are in and being up to par with their successful neighboring countries.