Cairo's Uprising Evokes Manila's People Power Revolution

Massive crowds numbering tens of thousands packed central Tahrir Square in Cairo on Friday, chanting, praying and crying out for the end of Hosni Mubarak's regime with a fervor undiminished after 11 wearying days of round-the-clock protests and brutal government violence.

At the same time, the Obama administration set in motion a plan for Mubarak's departure and a hand-over of power to a military-backed government headed by Vice President Omar Suleiman. The plan calls for inclusion of opposition parties, including the banned Muslim Brotherhood, in a new transition government. It was unclear late Friday if the plan would satisfy the protesters, or if Mubarak would give his assent.

The revolt in Egypt -- images of bloody faces, passionate cries for democracy and the endurance of fearless protesters carrying nothing to protect themselves but prayer and a desperate hope to end oppression -- brings to mind the people power revolution in Manila in February 1986, almost exactly 25 years ago.

Like the rebellion in Cairo, the uprising in Manila involved the poor, the middle- and upper-classes, young and old, men and women. They took to the streets of the Philippine capital in an explosion of long-suppressed anger and frustration at the dictatorial, 20-year regime of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

The revolt in Manila, just as the uprising now in Cairo, captivated the world and placed the United States in a tough position, having to choose between the people or the dictator, between a pro-democratic movement or a longtime loyal and important ally in a strategically vital part of the world.

Now as then, the American president was increasingly pressed to support the popular revolt over the aging autocrat.

That is the dilemma President Obama faced in the past 10 days.

Last weekend he sent his personal emissary, former Ambassador to Egypt Frank G. Wisner, to persuade Mubarak to step down. Mubarak declined. Wisner, 72, who served as American ambassador in four different postings, including Manila, left Cairo this week empty handed after Mubarak refused to see him a second time.

By contrast, on Feb. 24, 1986, President Ronald Reagan, through his intermediary Sen. Paul Laxalt of Nevada, told a supplicant Marcos to end it. "It's time to cut and cut cleanly," Laxalt said.

Sixteen hours later, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, with some relatives and associates (and bundles of U.S. dollars), were plucked out of the presidential palace in Manila on four U.S. military Huey helicopters and flown to Clark Air Force Base north of the capital, where they waited for a chartered jet to carry them to exile in Honolulu.

Corazon C. Aquino, who had run against Marcos a few weeks earlier in an election Marcos claimed to have won and which ignited the people's revolt, succeeded him.

"It's a new day," she said.

It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen in one month or one year. And it was not a simple people's revolt.

Neither is the uprising in Cairo. The New York Times has described how the Egyptian revolt was months in the making, preceding the anti-government outbreak in Tunisia that is credited with helping fire up the crisis in Egypt. Opposition to Mubarak has existed for years, and it took perhaps the right aligning of stars to unite anti-government forces long enough to take up what at one time seemed a lost cause.

Opposition to Marcos existed, sometimes underground, sometimes out in the open, for almost his entire tenure, 20 years. Thousands of opponents -- politicians, leftists, college activists, avowed communists and Muslim separatists -- were killed or imprisoned during years in office.

Bribes, kickbacks, rigged elections and greed defined Marcos' regime. Under him, his cronies got rich, his opponents went into exile. Beneath a charming personality and extremely engaging mind -- even his opponents considered him a political master -- he ruled by the threat of force, with a strong and loyal U.S.-trained and U.S.-funded military.

Despite the American support for Marcos, the Reagan administration had kept up with opposition figures. The American ambassador in Manila, Stephen W. Bosworth, had a clear channel to the Philippine defense minister, a top army general, and a small group of young reformist colonels who had banded together against Marcos.

Knowing that Marcos' popularity had dipped and that the extent of his corruption had become a world scandal, Washington began to press him to quit.

Reagan sent Philip Habib, a career diplomat, to push Marcos and check on opposition leaders, including a housewife named Corazon Aquino, the widow of the assassinated opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Marcos refused to quit but agreed to call for a presidential election ahead of schedule.

The opposition was fragmented, in disarray. Cory Aquino was the consensus candidate.
She soon became a magnet for anti-Marcos sentiment and built a huge following. By the time Election Day came around on Feb. 7, she had enlisted the young, the college-educated, business executives and elite families, academics, the left, English-language newspapers, the international news media and, important in the Philippines, the Catholic Church.

Marcos claimed victory. She disputed it and called for a campaign of civil disobedience. Massive, yet peaceful anti-Marcos demonstrations were countered by violent pro-Marcos goons and thousands of loyalists.

The crisis was getting out of control, the violence spiraling, when the defense minister, the army general and the young reformist colonels bolted from Marcos and barricaded themselves in the defense ministry in a military camp in the outskirts of Manila.

Marcos could no longer rely on the loyalty of his men.

Hundreds of thousands of anti-Marcos forces gathered around the military camp to protect the defecting troops. Within four days a full-blown military-led revolt had led to the fall of Marcos and the installation of Cory Aquino as the first democratic leader of the Philippines in more than a quarter century.

The parallels between Cairo and Manila are significant, but perhaps more significant are the differences.

In Cairo the military has remained silent, taking no sides publicly, presumed still loyal to Mubarak. The Egyptian military is a major player, as it was in Manila, in any change of government.

Manila had a respected and popular civilian opposition leader in Cory Aquino, ready to take over the presidency even if she lacked political experience.

Cairo has no civilian opposition leader with the standing and popularity to successfully take over the presidency. The new vice president, Omar Suleiman, and Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who has served as figurehead opposition leader this week, are not well known among the 80 million Egyptians. But Suleiman will probably take over in a transition government.

By day's end on Friday in Cairo, the crowd of protesters still held Tahrir Square, peace prevailed, and Mubarak remained in office.

In Washington, in an afternoon televised news conference, President Obama reiterated the U.S. plan for the end of Mubarak's years, saying that in conversations with the Egyptian leader he had made it clear that going backward is not going to work. The only thing that's going to work, Obama said he told Mubarak, is an orderly transition government that responds to the needs of the people and that the "key question" Mubarak should ask himself is how he leaves a legacy behind to help Egypt get through this period.

It's short for saying, time to go.