January 6 marks the fifth anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. Capitol as part of Donald Trump’s de facto coup attempt, which featured egging on insurrectionists as well as his less violent attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. Contemplating that day, which will live in infamy as much as December 7, 1941, my thoughts turn to another assault on democracy that I witnessed, in the Philippines back in August 1987.
It was just 18 months after the country’s “People Power” revolution toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and installed a fragile democracy headed by Cory Aquino. The widow of slain opposition leader Benigno Aquino, she’d recently beaten Marcos in an election he then stole to perpetuate his rule. People Power righted that wrong.
To rekindle those recollections, I dug up a letter I sent to friends days after the failed putsch. I quote parts of it here, and then offer some related reflections…
“A heart attack for the country…”
“I recall chatting on the phone with a friend the morning of the coup attempt, on August 28, shortly after getting to work…The reports were so fragmented and incomplete that we half-chuckled at “yet another mutiny,” unaware that this was not simply another hopeless grab for power [by small groups of military malcontents] (number five or six or eight since Cory came in, depending on which paper you read). This one almost succeeded…
“As the news reports grew increasingly bleak during the morning of the 28th, those of us who had made it to the office that day worked in a daze. The fall of the government was something most folks had not even dreamed could happen, at least not so soon, only 18 months after Aquino came to power. Yet the reports kept dribbling in: the rebels controlled part of Manila’s air force base, one [television] station after another fell into their hands, commanders in the field were turning their way. The occasional pro-government (?) tank or armored personnel carrier rumbled up the main drag that runs right by our office. The surreal became possible.
“Just the previous week, on the fourth anniversary of Benigno Aquino’s assassination, the papers had been full of proud advertisements and articles celebrating his memory and the subsequent revolution with which that memory is now intertwined…Efren, a fellow who works for the [Asia] Foundation [which had brought me to Manila to do democracy-assisting grant-giving a few months earlier], had [previously] told me how he had joined the “People Power” throngs that had blocked Marcos’ tanks from attacking Camp Aguinaldo [the military headquarters] in February 1986, when it was held by an earlier, more popular band of [pro-democracy] rebel soldiers. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Now, just a week after beaming about those very special days, Efren and everyone else in the office began to look broken. How had the dream unraveled so quickly?
““As you know, the dream is not completely gone…By the night of the 28th it was becoming apparent that the mutineers were going to lose. People were starting to say that maybe the revolt had been a good thing. One metaphor that I liked was offered by my boss, who saw this as a heart attack for the country, something that might make it change its diet and lifestyle, forcing it to address the corruption and irresolution that have increasingly characterized the government.”
Ups and downs…
Philippine democracy has seen volatile ups and downs since then. Fidel Ramos, the general who put down the rebellion, went on to win the election to succeed Aquino in 1992 and to arguably compile the best track record of any Philippine president.
The following decades saw the elections of a rather dim movie star, the corrupt daughter of a previous president, Aquino’s well-intentioned and somewhat impactful son, a brutal and quasi-authoritarian provincial politician and now Marcos’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. Though no prince, except in a dynastic sense, Bongbong’s record is at least better than those of his father and his own brutal predecessor, who is imprisoned and awaits trial by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for crimes against humanity.
One relative footnote to all this is that the coup leader, former Colonel Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, was granted amnesty by then-President Ramos. Gringo – Filipinos love their nicknames – went on to be elected senator and serve in that role for over two decades.
Hmmm…A coup leader let off the legal hook and elected to high office. Does that sound familiar?
I’d decry the fact that the “heart attack” Honasan’s mutiny imposed on the country spurred little in terms of lessons, reforms and accountability, but…
Wagging the Venezuelan dog…
Who am I to judge the Philippines? America had our own heart attack on January 6, 2021. What with Trump’s assaults on our democracy, freedoms and rule of law, and his demagogic embrace of dictators everywhere, we’re suffering an even more threatening and extended illness right now. Looking back at the Philippine “corruption and irresolution” I condemned nearly 40 years ago, I can’t help ruing our own, far more recent history.
Don’t get me wrong: Despite this despair, I’m actually slightly optimistic about what 2026 may bring politically. This hope starts with tentative confidence about the Democrats taking back the House of Representatives, based on both Trump’s unpopularity and long-term trends of the party out of power usually winning the mid-term elections.
In addition, the Democrats seem to be recovering from their post-presidential election swoon; Trump remains determined to shoot himself in his political foot in manifold ways; and certain former loyalists are distancing themselves from him.
Of course, Trump is resorting to “wag the dog” actions to distract the press and public from his Epstein connection, the economy’s deterioration and assorted transgressions. Venezuela represents a case in point, though that misadventure-in-the-making is also about oil, greed, narcissism and other factors that may yet come to light. (A step toward attacking Cuba? Granting Russia’s abominable war on Ukraine some bizarre degree of equivalence? Dividing the world into American, Russian and Chinese spheres of influence? Fortifying his “might makes right” take on our nation and the world?) While such distractions may work in the short run – for instance, the media is largely ignoring the Department of Justice’s failure to produce a promised Epstein report due the day before the Venezuela attack – they may not be enough to fool enough of the people enough of the time.
A darker world…
I don’t want to draw too many lessons from and comparisons with the Philippines, given how different that former U.S. colony is from us. But still…
Could America’s military be used to in effect overthrow our own constitutional order here – albeit probably with a veneer of legality, such as to supposedly protect “election integrity” against “un-American” opposition? It’s unlikely, particularly in view of the armed forces’ apolitical culture and traditions.
But does anyone absolutely rule out such an attempt by Trump and by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other anti-democratic actors? Is anyone certain that our remarkably compliant Supreme Court would resist it? Going back in Philippine history, the first Marcos fomented instability and used claims about protecting the country against hostile forces (in his case, a communist insurgency) when he imposed martial law in 1972.
If our democracy survives the Trump years, will we return to “business as usual,” with our national governance operating in historically flawed ways that nonetheless preserve legitimate political competition and return us to some semblance of the rule of law? Possibly. But with Trump remaking the Republican political brand in his image and legitimizing far-right attitudes once considered beyond the pale, we may face a future in which one party continues to disdain democracy as it was once understood in America. In that regard, we may actually exceed the problems plaguing Philippine democracy.
The largest lesson..
On the other hand, the Philippines also demonstrates that when a dictator picks sycophantic lackeys over harsh realities in planning policies (as Marcos, Venezuela’s Maduro, Iraq’s Hussein and Russia’s Putin have done), or if he’s in cognitive and physical decline (a trait Trump and Marcos share), he’s more likely to make self-destructive mistakes. Trump’s Venezuela misadventure may yet become a miasma that shrouds his administration in worse and worse news, as he lurches forward without an apparent plan. And even if he doesn’t end up echoing George W. Bush’s short-lived, illusory “Mission Accomplished” victory in Iraq, Trump may fall victim to his own narcissism and deterioration in other ways.
Finally, there’s an even more positive lesson from Philippine history here: The fight for democracy may never end, but even major setbacks never mean it’s over. America traveled a bumpy democratic path long before Trump soiled the political scene. The Philippines did so as well before the first Marcos; it’s continued to stumble through hills and valleys ever since, but has not fallen to dictatorship.
Thus, the single largest lesson we can draw from the Philippines and from other countries beleaguered by authoritarianism is this: Don’t give up.
Not giving up.
Thank you, Steve!
Keep fighting! But how?