Social Movements: Experiences in the Philippines (Aya Fabros, Joel Rocamora, and Djorina Velasco, eds.) (original) (raw)
Related papers
A Critical Analysis of Social Movements in the Philippines
The changed political milieu in the Philippines after the downfall of the Marcos regime in 1986 generated greater interest among academics and movement participants to scrutinize the concepts of state and civil society; the dynamics of state and civil society relations and of intra-civil society relations; and more recently, globalization as a process that shapes these relationships. The nature of battles and rebellions in Philippine history ranged from personal, religious, economic, and civic to political motives. The major threat to democracy and economic development in the Philippines continues to be the inability to bridge the gap between formal political rights and social equity. The political and socioeconomic costs of poverty and inequality are the main corrosive elements to freedom and liberty in the country.
nottingham.ac.uk
This paper engages with and contests the main contention that social movements increasingly either reject development goals or state-centric modes of political action using an empirical and historical case study. The Philippines is widely recognised as a nation-state in which considerable social mobilisation and contestation has emerged since the 1970s. Social movements and their leaderships have fragmented in recent years. Some reacted to the experience of high levels of economic growth in the East Asian region by imagining that social and political alliances with elite political actors could replicate these experiences in conjunction with higher levels of public provision. These alliances have not ended well. More recently there has been a renewed focus on potentialities for insurrectionary struggles for power. What is clear is that conventional goals of political change via alteration in state power have remained the focus of action. There remains a predominate view that popular classes can obtain power through political struggles that emerge from the inability of the main ruling-class forces and the 'anti-development state' to enact measures of development. The Philippines suggests social movement continue to focus on the conquest of state power and how international configurations of these forces interact.
It’s All the Rage: Popular Uprisings and Philippine Democracy
Massive peaceful demonstrations ended the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines twenty years ago. The “people power” uprising wascalled a democratic revolution and inspired hopes that it would lead to the consolidationof democracy in the Philippines. When popular uprisings were later used to remove orthreaten other leaders, people power was criticized as an assault on democraticinstitutions and was interpreted as a sign of the political immaturity of Filipinos. Theliterature on people power is presently marked by disagreement as to whether all popularuprisings should be considered part of the people power tradition. The debate isgrounded on the belief that people power was a democratic revolution; other uprisings are judged on how closely they resemble events surrounding Marcos’ ouster from office.This disagreement has become unproductive and has prevented Filipinos from askingquestions about the causes of these uprisings or the failure of democratic consolidation.This Article departs from conventional thought and develops two alternative theories of people power in the Philippines. The first holds that people power is an expression of outrage against a particular public official. The second holds that it is a withdrawal of allegiance from the official in favor of another. Neither view insists that people power isor aspires to democratic revolution. These alternative theories hope to resuscitate thestudy of Philippine democracy.
‘People Power’ in the Philippines, 1983–86
The non-violent removal of Ferdinand Marcos in February 1986 through a mass uprising that had started in 1983 was a landmark event both in the Philippines and internationally. It introduced the term ‘people power’ into academic and journalistic discourse and was used as a model for subsequent civil disobedience movements in Asia and the Soviet bloc. It raises many questions regarding the relationship between civil resistance and other forms of power, and the diVerence between short-term and long-term success. Analysis of non-violent resistance in the Philippines is still incomplete. This chapter attempts to fill this gap by offering reflections on the use of non-violent methods in the Philippine context. The first section offers a historical overview of the uneven democratization process from the early 1970s to the flawed election of 2004. The second section, which is in several parts, addresses questions relating to the role of civil resistance in political change. It considers the reasons for the adoption of non-violent strategies, and the ways in which the coexistence of armed struggles in the Philippines influenced the adoption and effectiveness of non-violent methods. It shows how particular circumstances, especially the regime’s shameless electoral fraud, contributed to the movement’s success. It looks briefly at the role of international power balances generally and the US in particular. Various criteria are suggested for the evaluation of the success and failure of the civil resistance movement during the Marcos and immediate post- Marcos years. The concluding section draws out the links between the practice of civil resistance and democratization, and suggests some lessons which can be learnt from the Philippine example. In particular the conclusion asks what post- authoritarian governance in the Philippines since 1986 shows about a possible connection between the practice of civil resistance and liberal outcomes.
Third World Quarterly, 1993
This is the first in a series of studies (financed by Uppsala University and the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries) of the importance of democratisation for radical popular movements as they tackle problems of development in Kerala (India), the Philippines, and Indonesia. Certain movements will be followed over time and this essay is based on the initial round of studies in the Philippines. I am most thankful to all friends cum colleagues, political leaders and activists in the Philippines, who in a spirit of mutual trust and interest in critical studies have spent a lot of time, even during hectic election campaigning, informing and discussing with me. And thanks also for valuable comments on drafted versions of this essay by some of these Filipinos, plus colleagues in Sweden and participants in the "International Workshop on Social Movements, State and Democracy" in New Delhi, October, 1992.
Performing Politics: Dissent of the Mass Movement Against Neoliberal Policies in the Philippines
Idealogy, 2019
Nationalist and democratic mass movements consistently resist the implementation of neoliberal policies by the Philippine government. The government's affirmation to the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), inclusion of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), and the hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in 2015 and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in 2017, among others, have all been dealt with protests by tens of thousands of militant activists. In these demonstrations, activists convert major roads into public spaces wherein not only dissent against imperialist globalization, privatization, and issues alike are expressed, but also it made an opportunity for them to further educate the people about how the said issues affect their personal and everyday lives. This paper combined Habermas' concept of a public sphere, Lefebvre's concept of public space, and Foucault's concept of micropolitics as a form of resistance in setting a basis to establish that political participation at resistance is a form of performance. A performative look on political participation will not only give a better meaning on political works but also deepens the understanding of one on discourses and resistances. Dreisbach, J. (2019). Performing Politics: Dissent of the Mass Movement Against Neoliberal Policies in the Philippines. IDEALOGY, 4(1), 92-98. Retrieved from http://idealogyjournal.com/ojs/index.php/idealogy/article/view/127