One year after the EDSA 2 uprising, it is important to remind ourselves of several things: First, EDSA 2 was not merely meant to unseat Erap and install Gloria Macapal-Arroyo. It was meant to evict a corrupt, abusive president and dramatize the citizenry’s clamor for decent, rational and transformative governance. Second, EDSA 2 was a unique political exercise brought about by an extraordinary confluence of events. The people who flooded the streets and sustained the uprising for four days are not automated, brainless zombies who can be summoned at will by any cabal that feels the need to do so. The spirit of EDSA is not something that should be invoked every time there is discontent or disenchantment with government.

AKBAYAN emphasizes these points in the light of rumors and open calls for an ‘EDSA 4’ because of dissatisfaction with the Arroyo government. AKBAYAN shares some of the criticisms against the current administration but rejects all propositions concerning coups and juntas or the immediate ouster of Pres. Arroyo. We wish to stress that we adhere to the democratic and constitutional order that prescribes laws and processes for our system of government. AKBAYAN is as determined as ever to pursue political, social and economic reforms within an arena that provides for the freedom of all Filipinos to participate in the peaceful struggle for change. Any authoritarian set-up such as a civilian-military junta is a defeat of EDSA, a defeat of the democratic ideal, and as such will never about the just, progressive leadership that we aspire for. Likewise, a rigodon of presidents every 2 or 3 years does not respond to the more strategic issue of reforms.

We believe, however, that the Arroyo government is eroding its own legitimacy for several reasons. If it preoccupies itself with politicking, with compromising with the various elites in order to perpetuate itself beyond 2004, it will certainly make itself more vulnerable to destabilization and cause more disaffection with a public hungry for reforms. If it refuses to adjust its rigid economic strategy in the face of worsening poverty and a global recession, it encourages popular unrest. If it continues to betray the promises it made a year ago, it undermines its own reason for being.

AKBAYAN therefore sounds an urgent call for RADICAL REFORMS, especially on the following fronts:

1. Economic strategy and policy: The Arroyo government’s stubborn adherence to a discredited neo-liberal economic framework might plunge the country into an abyss such as the one that Argentina has fallen into. In the context of a global economic slowdown in trade and production, the government must consider its wanton globalization and liberalization policies and focus on the domestic economy. Critical areas are labor and agriculture, where massive displacements have occurred and will continue to occur if adjustments are not made. Since economic growth will further be reduced within the next two years, a coherent social protection and asset-redistribution program must be put into place. Abusive corporate behavior as in the case of failed privatization programs in the utilities sector (water, power, infrastructure) must be checked before they result in unbearable costs of basic needs and services, especially for the urban poor.

2. Agrarian reform and the coco levy: One of the biggest challenges to the Arroyo government is if it can indeed re-distribute the remaining agricultural lands to farmers as stipulated by law. Another is if it will give impoverished coconut farmers their due in the form of the coco levy fund. It would only take political will for this government to reinforce and strengthen what the Supreme Court has already ruled in favor of the millions of small coconut farmers. Both are necessary to uplift the condition of the rural poor, and both are tests of political will as they signify a break in traditional government bias for landowners and cronies like Danding Cojuangco.

3. Anti-corruption and good governance: We all recognize that corruption can not be eradicated overnight but we expect radical measures to at least demonstrate the intent to reduce and eliminate it eventually from public office. While we laud the appointment of Haydee Yorac to the PCGG, we have yet to see similar appointments in crucial agencies and anti-corruption bodies. We have yet to see any sort of anti-corruption program under this presidency. We wait for the Office of the Ombudsman, the various line agencies (starting with the DENR and the DAR) and the COMELEC to be peopled by competent, credible individuals with unquestionable reputations.

   We condemn the continuing lack of transparency and people’s participation in crucial processes and venues of governance. One glaring example would the Economic Summit held in December of last year. Another would be the "dialogue" with DAR Secretary Braganza in September last year that ended in the violent dispersal of farmers who had a scheduled appointment with the Secretary. Another would be in supposedly "public" consultations regarding crucial issues such as regulation and contract reviews for privatized utilities.

4. Peace agreement with the Moro peoples: The Arroyo government’s slavish concurrence with the US "anti-terrorist" agenda has done much damage to the peace process for Mindanao. It has used this as an excuse to lump the MNLF and MILF with rogue groups such as the Abu Sayyaf. It employs the same old divide-and-rule tactic against the Moros, while blurring questions of social justice and self-determination, which are the core issues of autonomy. As we have said again and again, a purely military solution to the Mindanao conflict will not work, nor will a corrupted version of autonomy.

As for anti-terrorism, the Senate and Malacanang would do better to cobble up a respectable anti-money laundering law, because their flawed offering was recently rejected by the Financial Action Task Force of the European Union.

There are of course many more issues that the Arroyo government needs to address, but we selected these for their urgency. We challenge the Arroyo government to justify and defend its existence by heeding the demands and warnings of EDSA 2.