Today is the 21st anniversary of the ‘EDSA People Power Revolution’ that toppled the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

But other than being a public holiday with government-sponsored festivities, this revolution is slowly losing its luster in the hearts and minds of the Filipino people.

“Regretfully, the prevailing view is that EDSA was no big deal … that EDSA is no longer that important seems more and more the conventional wisdom … as the event recedes into the fog of history,” said former President Fidel V. Ramos, a key player in this historical event. 

What is the big deal about People Power when there is unabated corruption in public governance, when government merely pays lip service to violations of human rights, when the economic conditions of the country continue to favor the rich than the poor, when the suffrage remains subservient to electoral cheating or political patronage and getting elected to public office is reduced to a mere popularity contest, in addition to traditional rule of political dynasties?

More than two decades after the EDSA revolution, many of the same faces under the Marcos regime are still in power, only death perhaps would make them vanish from the political limelight. The new faces on the other hand simply and conveniently assumed the ugly faces and the usual ways of their old counterpart.

Twenty one years is not even enough to sustain a final conviction of the so-called Marcos cronies and put them where they finally belong at the national penitentiary. The recovery of the alleged ill-gotten wealth is still mired in a complicated process of litigation. 

All of these are the promises that EDSA failed to keep. And as years go by, there is little hope that these promises will ever be fulfilled.

With People Power, the Filipino people had that once in a lifetime opportunity for dramatic social transformation and wide-ranging political reforms. But they missed the chance very miserably either because all the post-EDSA governments did not have the political will or the people of this country are morally weak or even innately lackadaisical in preserving their gains.

Perhaps some political observers are correct in saying that what this country needs is a benevolent dictator in the concept of an ‘enlightened despot’ of ancient Greek philosopher Plato. With a dictator, political will prevails over rules and people are driven to follow. The only problem with the set-up is that it is grossly subjective. A government of men and not of laws would always be a shaky condition.

Erstwhile President Corazon C. Aquino could have been the enlightened despot the country needed at the onset of her revolutionary regime. But it is not in her mettle and so she chose the difficult path of restoring and re-building democratic processes and institutions. In any case, it would also be difficult to imagine for the people then to accept a tyrannical rule after overthrowing a tyrant.

More than twenty years later, the 1986 People Power is simply just another historic fairy tale except that it did not have an ending where Filipinos lived happily ever after. Even its 2001 sequel did not make any difference on the status quo. 
  
The next time that the people wake up to call for social and political reforms, it could be a bloody confrontation among compatriots, a cleansing process that was wanting, they say, in the bloodless coup of 1986 for the Filipino people to hold sacred the value of freedom and democracy and everything that they represent.

People power – is there really such a thing? Or is it just a broken dream?