The 2001 EDSA Revolution

1. Like in EDSA Revolution 1, In EDSA 2 the people gathered in EDSA highway, but this time they asked President Joseph Estrada to resign. The people were frustrated because he was accused of plunder and yet he remained in power. The revolution was started by some top officials of the government and some politicians. They encouraged the people to join them and soon the people came. Later on, they were joined by the army. 2. In most revolutions, a lot of people die, but EDSA Revolution 2 is different because it was bloodless; nobody died. The purpose of the revolution was to ask President Estrada to resign because the people believed that he was guilty of plunder and therefore not fit to be president. In EDSA revolution 1, the people came out to protect the revolutionaries from President Marcos. The Philippines at that time was under dictatorship and the people fought for their freedom. In EDSA 2, the Philippines was under democracy, so the people were not fighting for their freedom. The people were just unsatisfied with their president because they thought he was corrupt and inept and so they wanted to remove him from power. 3. Because of EDSA 2, President Estrada was forced to step down. He was succeeded by his vice-president Gloria M. Arroyo. Some people thought that the nation became better and the economy improved when Arroyo became the president. Estrada’s supporters, on the other hand, were angered because they were thinking that the majority of Filipinos wanted Estrada to remain president. 4. The revolution was not justified because the people forced a legitimate president who won the elections by a landslide to resign. It is not good to elect a president and then have a revolution if the people do not feel unsatisfied with his presidency. President Estrada was accused of plunder, but the people should have waited for the impeachment process to finish and let the law decide what to do with him. If the people decide to have a revolution every time they are unsatisfied with their president, the nation will never have stability.   5. EDSA revolution 2 like the first EDSA revolution was bloodless. According to Brinton Crane, a revolution involves violence, but since EDSA 2 was bloodless, it cannot be considered as a real revolution. In most revolutions, the fight is between the rich and the poor, but in Edsa revolution, the people were against the president; it was not really a fight between the rich and the poor. According to Brinton Crane, people revolt because the government is ineffective and cannot effectively manage the country due to an inept leader. In EDSA 2, the people decided to oust the president because they thought he was incompetent. The revolution was also led by intellectuals.  The president was forcibly asked to resign, but not violently removed from power. Edsa revolution 2 has some differences with Brinton Crane’s anatomy of a revolution, but the purpose was the same.