The EDSA Monument and White Plains are thick with familiar energy. Looking at the sea of banners—where the disciplined organizational machinery of the Iglesia ni Cristo blends with interfaith declarations like “Muslims for Duterte” and “Christians for Duterte”—one cannot help but feel a profound sense of déjà vu.
The signage screams of deep systemic pain: “1.7 Trillion! Nakaw sa Bayan!” and widespread fury over corruption. For many Filipinos, taking to the pavement is the absolute last resort, a necessary explosion of democratic dissent to voice grievances against a system that feels fundamentally broken.
Yet, as a son of Mindanao who has spent decades navigating interfaith dialogues, peacebuilding, and institutional governance, I look at these images with severe trepidation.
We must candidly ask ourselves: what happens if this “People Power” succeeds? If history is our guide, the answer is dangerously volatile.
There is a slim, fragile chance that this mobilization succeeds in toppling current structures. But if it does, it must be the absolute last time our nation resorts to the streets to adjudicate justice. We cannot remain a Republic that functions only by resetting its government every few years through sheer crowd size.
This cycle of institutional disruption paralyzes our economic momentum, deepens historical regional alienation, and fractures our fragile social fabric. A nation cannot truly rise when its foundational laws are constantly subjected to the shifting winds of street vetoes.
How, then, does a nation genuinely rise up after the dust of “People Power” settles? The survival of our democracy hinges on moving past political showmanship and executing surgical, uncompromising reforms. For this protest to be vindicated as a genuine success—and not just another partisan power grab—it must serve as the catalyst for absolute, institutional accountability.
First and foremost, success means prosecuting and convicting every single corrupt official involved in the recent multi-billion dollar scandals that have gutted our public coffers. We must see total justice regarding the General Appropriations Act (GAA) anomalies, where public funds are diverted into private pockets.
We must see a complete overhaul and criminal accountability for the shameless plundering of health security in the PhilHealth scandal, which directly jeopardized the lives of our poorest citizens. Furthermore, the actors behind the pervasive Flood Control scandals—which leave our communities repeatedly submerged while billions disappear into ghost infrastructure—must face swift imprisonment.
But the real, agonizing question is how. How do we ensure these demands translate into permanent structural transformation rather than empty post-rally rhetoric?
The answer lies in aggressive, systemic overhauls across both the executive and legislative departments. We must permanently dismantle the deeply entrenched patronage systems that govern budget allocations. In the legislative branch, this requires passing robust freedom of information laws and creating independent, citizen-led oversight committees with teeth to monitor GAA disbursements in real-time.
We must strictly enforce transparency measures that make backroom infrastructure deals and flood control bidding processes completely public and traceable.
In the executive department, we must insulate our regulatory and health institutions, like PhilHealth, from political weaponization and cronyism. Leadership in these vital agencies must be strictly merit-based, governed by stringent civil service standards rather than political rewards. Furthermore, our judicial and prosecutorial arms must be heavily fortified. The Office of the Ombudsman must remain fiercely independent, completely unswayed by either Malacañang or the sheer pressure of mass mobilizations on EDSA.
If we want this to be the final time Filipinos feel forced to march en masse, we must build a system where the law actually works. True triumph is not measured by the number of bodies occupying a highway or the flags waved in defiance. It is measured by the resilience of our secular democratic institutions to punish the powerful and protect the vulnerable without requiring a civilian revolt to do so.
If this current movement can channel its collective fury away from mere political idolatry and directly into enforcing these systemic checkpoints, then—and only then—will it be successful. We must transition from the chaotic theater of the streets into the enduring, quiet rigor of institutional rebuilding. If we fail to do this, we will find ourselves back on the pavement a few years from now, older, poorer, and still chasing the elusive ghost of a functional democracy. It is time to let the rule of law finally rule.
