Today, the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) joins the Filipino workers and people in celebrating the 40^th anniversary of the Edsa “People Power” uprising. With the significant participation of Filipino workers, Edsa successfully toppled the US-backed one-man Marcos dictatorship and reinstalled elite democracy. Acting on Edsa’s pressure, the post-dictatorship regime enshrined robust labor and human rights provisions in the 1987 Constitution, and nominally increased the democratic space for workers, farmers and other marginalized sectors.

All is not well after February 1986, however. Despite professions of adherence to rights and democracy, post-Edsa regimes without exception carried out the political repression of progressive grassroots organizations of workers and other marginalized sectors. All post-Edsa regimes – especially those of Macapagal-Arroyo, Aquino III, Duterte, and Marcos Jr – carried out grave human rights violations and were beset by corruption scandals involving the highest officials of the land.

Edsa also ushered in the full-speed implementation of neoliberal economic policies that are anti-worker and anti-poor and further weakened the promise of democracy. Forty years after Edsa, the country has become dependent on the remittances of migrant Filipinos and income from the Business Process Outsourcing, as the country fails to develop its agriculture and industry. While these economic sectors help a significant number of Filipinos survive, the country’s elites have become too dependent on them that they refused to work for sovereign and genuine development for the country. As a result, majority of Filipinos suffer from landlessness, joblessness, poverty and even hunger.

The road to Edsa was paved the way by the 1975 La Tondeña workers’ strike, which shattered the silence imposed by the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. Edsa means not just the four-day mass mobilization in 1986, but the entire repertoire of contention and protests carried out by the Filipino workers and people that led to that point. Seen in this light, Edsa is a weapon of the Filipino workers and people for checking the abuse of power by the country’s rulers. It is a means for exacting accountability from rulers when the country’s political institutions refuse to do so or are blocked from doing so.

Edsa therefore remains relevant. Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court or ICC was enabled by workers’ and Filipinos’ protests. Edsa animates the drive to make President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Vice President Sara Duterte face impeachment trials for corruption and abuse of power. The Filipino workers and people need to wield Edsa to ensure that the 2028 elections will not yield a leadership that comes from the most-hated political families that were responsible for the most severe attacks on rights and democracy. We need to continuously employ Edsa to undo the neoliberal economic policies that have been disastrous to workers and all Filipinos.

The need for Edsa did not end in 1986 and persists in the Filipino workers’ and people’s quest for genuine democracy and the realization of labor and human rights.