If we were to accept the version of Philippine history as an unfinished revolution, a revolution initiated by the "revolt of the masses" but was later hi-jacked by the bourgeoisie, then what we have is a divided nation.  In fact, our nationhood is even suspect.  Once upon a time, the masses dreamed of and fought for a nationhood of  free citizens only to wake up in a nightmare of internal colonialism.  The old Spanish masters have been replaced by local ones who in turn serve the interests of the old regime now transformed into the universal fellowship of capitalists, otherwise known as globalization.  The masses remain enslaved.  There is no nation, at least for them.  The nation-state is invented by the bourgeosie for the bourgeoisie.  The masses have been silenced.

Part of this silence is the peasant/proletarian complicity in the narrative of the nation.  Filipino television has created a nationhood not based on a fellowship of free citizens but an affinity based on Nora Aunor, Joseph Estrada, FPJ, Sharon Cuneta, and Judy Ann Santos--icons defining the wall between the adoring masses and the godlike elite.  This is a nationhood that structures salvation not in terms of a peasant revolution but in terms of begging.  Thousands among the urban poor fall in line every day at the studios of GMA and ABS-CBN for a chance at winning money from noontime game shows.  Urban poor communities pray that Willie Revillame should come down from heaven and perform miraculous deeds and build schools and houses in his program, Willingly Yours, which is just the newest incarnation of older models such as Kapwa Ko, Mahal Ko--programs that ease the bourgeoise guilt through benevolence in the form of ephemeral consumables that do nothing to change the material relations that enslave the poor or to give them the means to transcend these material relations.  While the proletarian of Europe have failed to achieve their revolutionary potential because they have become too comfortable, the proletarian of the Phillipines is continuing to fail because it has become complicit in a narrative of nationhood that naturalizes poverty.

The same television industry that promotes a nationhood based on such shallow icons such as actors is the same industry that ignored the EDSA 3 of the lumpen who marched to Malacanang palace to demand the return to power of a deposed president Joseph Estrada.  The irony lies in the fact that Joseph Estrada was created by the media to serve as the opiate the masses (the entertainment industry becoming a kind of religion with its own casts of prophets and heroes).  Subversion, no matter how much it is repressed in the national unconscious, has funny ways of re-surfacing.

BUt the fact remains that our tradition of EDSA revolutions is losing its revolutionary potential (the most recent one having even failed to crystallize) because it remains trapped in the ideology of the nation.  All three EDSA revolutions are, in fact, counter-revolutionary.  They have merely wasted the crisis of capitalism that have pushed the poor to act, wasted all that energy, in order to manifest a "people power" that is nothing less than a lie.  People power is a hegemonic and unconscious drive of the bourgeois nation-state that directs the wrath of the masses into the wrong targets in order to reinstate its hegemonic order.  So EDSA I had its toppling of Marcos that enshrined Cory, EDSA II had its toppling of Erap that enshrined Gloria, EDSA III had its attempt to topple Gloria to restore Erap, the almost-EDSA IV again targeted Gloria but failed to crystallize because it had nothing and no one with which to replace her.  All this energy, this mass rage, the Philippine Left  is unable to harness for the proletarian revolution.

The claim of the Philippine Left is that they have no illusions about EDSA revolutions and are merely working on a tactical alliance with the right-wing elements.  For what?  They think that by helping to disrupt the operation of liberal democracy, the masses will get enraged and will one day rebel.  But the masses already are enraged.  All that these fruitless, misdirected people power revolutions are accomplishing is to demoralize them even further, show them that mass action accomplishes nothing, thereby killing their sense of agency that crucial historical moments have managed to produce.  Worse, these "tactical alliances" are doing nothing to help the Left build credibility in the eyes of the people.  Most people see the "tactical alliances" for what they are--political opportunism.

EDSA revolutions are not revolutions.  If we are to transcend the nation, we must first explode the concept. The grip of a shallow nationhood on the minds of our people must be broken and replaced by something else.  If there's one group of people who can help create what that "something" else, it's the Philippine Left.  So why don't we stop on the silliness of these "people powers" and move on to more serious business?