Henry David Thoreau (1812 - 1862) by Ronan S. Estoque, DPA (January, 2008)

Mr. Thoreau principally advocated “Civil Disobedience”. Since the Philippines is one of the early pioneers in People Power, I would like to tackle the topic of “civil disobedience” in the republic.

Historically, I could only recall one incident in the pages of Philippine experience where civil disobedience happened – and this is the ‘tearing of the cedula’ led by Andres Bonifacio in Pugad Lawin, Balintawak. Now this is historically relevant because the “cedula” represents the community taxation that was being imposed by the Spanish Administration. When Andres Bonifacio led the tearing of the “cedula”, he was literally refusing to pay the community taxes, which indirectly states that he no longer recognizes the authority of the Spanish Administration to collect taxes.

Similarly, this was the same refusal that Mr. Thoreau did when he refused to pay the poll tax during the American-Mexican War. Though he still recognizes the supremacy of the American Government, he disagrees with the forwarded rationales for the conduct of the Mexican War.

Using the theoretical framework of Mr. Thoreau, Edsa I and Edsa II cannot possibly qualify as a “civil disobedience” (because it was not about tax payments) but are more appropriately classified as a “revolution”.

Strangely, the so-called Edsa III might even be considered as civil disobedience because by stretching the theoretical framework of Mr. Thoreau, the protesters of Edsa III destroyed a lot of government properties simply because they do not recognize the administration of GMA (i.e. legitimacy issues). Of course, this is a stretch – but the act of disobedience is there.

The concept of civil disobedience has evolved over time. Filipinos still needs to understand fully the uses and disadvantages of civil disobedience. In my personal estimation, success came to easy for the Filipinos (e.g. Edsa I and Edsa II) and now that there is a very strong clamor for GMA to resign, people are at a lost on how to conduct an effective civil disobedience.