EDSA was not a Revolution

(First part of a series on ‘Retaking EDSA’)

A week from now on February 25, a small minority of Filipino society will again congregate at EDSA to celebrate what was labeled as a revolution.

It is about time to burst the bubble and tell these people that what they are celebrating is not a revolution.

A revolution is defined by Jeff Goodwin as “any and all instances in which a state or a political regime is overthrown and hereby transformed by a popular movement in an irregular, extraconstitutional and/or violent fashion.”

He further avers that “revolutions entail not only mass mobilization and regime change, but also more or less rapid and fundamental social, economic and/or cultural change, during or soon after the struggle for state power.”

A more structuralist definition is provided by Jack Goldstone, who defined revolution as “an effort to transform political institutions and the justifications for political authority in society, accompanied by formal or informal mass mobilization and non-institutionalized actions that undermine authority.”

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