ABS-CBN News yesterday carried a story on sociologist Josephine Aguilar’s claim that “People Power fatigue” afflicts Filipinos.
Aguilar reportedly said that:
People power fatigue na nga ito. Kapag kinausap mo ang mga tao napapagod na sila dahil paulit-ulit ang nangyayari at pare-pareho din ang mga taong involved, malalaking tao. (This is people power fatigue. If you would talk to the people, they would say they are already tired because [these kind of controversies] are just going in circles, with the same people involved, big people)
Aguilar failed to count in her analysis the genuine fatigue felt by the people: We have had enough of the mafiosi way the government is running the country and that we are sick and tired of President Arroyo.
In response, I am republishing a piece I wrote in 2005 titled On the sham idea of “People Power fatigue”:
Palace propagandists who spread the yarn “People Power fatigue” opportunistically forget to mention or refuse to admit that their principal Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was catapulted to office by the second People Power uprising in 2001.
They also fail to mention that it is a universally-acknowledged right of peoples and nations to form new governments and consequently demolish existing governments that they deem to be unfit, unwanted or oppressive.
Moreover, they use the Constitution as a shield from attempts by the real Sovereign power — the Filipino people themselves — when the latter flex their muscles and press their demand for Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s removal from power.
It is also obvious that they have no qualms (mis)using People Power for their own benefit. They proclaim as bogus People Power the anti-Arroyo demonstrations that are fast catching fire across the country, while declaring as genuine the pro-Arroyo mobilizations mounted by national and local government executives who require state employees, students of state schools and groups of persons to attend the rally and sing paeans to their beleaguered leader.