People Power: the EDSA Revolution
After a fraud-ridden snap election, military defectors and up to two million unarmed civilians, rallied by the Catholic Church, fill a Manila highway and force Ferdinand Marcos into exile; Corazon Aquino becomes president.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
- History of the Filipino People — Teodoro A. Agoncillo, Garotech (1990)
Under American pressure, Marcos called a snap presidential election for 7 February 1986. The opposition united behind Corazon “Cory” Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, a self-described “plain housewife”. The official count declared Marcos the winner, but citizen volunteers of the poll-watch group NAMFREL reported widespread fraud, and computer technicians at the election commission walked out in protest. The Catholic bishops declared that the government had lost its moral authority.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- Waltzing with a Dictator: The Marcoses and the Making of American Policy — Raymond Bonner, Times Books (1987)
On 22 February, Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Lieutenant General Fidel Ramos broke with Marcos and barricaded themselves in two military camps on EDSA, the ring road around Manila. Cardinal Jaime Sin went on the Church’s Radio Veritas to call people into the streets to protect them. Over the next three days hundreds of thousands, perhaps two million, people filled the avenue, nuns kneeling in front of tanks and families handing flowers and food to soldiers. Marcos’s troops would not fire. On 25 February both Aquino and Marcos held inaugurations; that night the Americans flew the Marcos family to Hawaii, leaving behind Imelda’s famous shoes.
- The Anti-Marcos Struggle: Personalistic Rule and Democratic Transition in the Philippines — Mark R. Thompson, Yale University Press (1995)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
- The 1987 Constitution of the Republic of the Philippines — Constitutional Commission of 1986, Official Gazette (1987)
- State and Society in the Philippines — Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso, Rowman & Littlefield (2017)
Why it matters today
EDSA is a source of national pride, a peaceful revolution that inspired movements elsewhere, from Eastern Europe to East Asia. But many Filipinos also feel that "People Power" restored the old elite rather than changing lives, and its anniversary has become a quieter, more contested occasion.