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Drown People Power!

Various blogs and op-ed columnists have analyzed why people it seems don't want to take to the streets in droves to dethrone our Glorious Pampangic Queen. Manolo Quezon does a good job listing the who's who of analysis.

But then again the political analysts and "dentists" (who opt for treatments from extraction to radical surgery!) seem to be overanalyzing. People Power "fatigue"has crept in the body politic and there is a need to know why. This is a legit form of academic exercise.

But according to the latest surveys, people still believe in the principles they have fought for in the last two people powers. But they won't heed this new attempt to launch another one.

The Orthodox have an aphorism. Two Romes have fallen, One still stands (the Russian Empire) and a fourth shall never be.

To which I paraphrase. Three EDSAs have fallen, One has been corrupted (By Her Imperial Majesty Gloriana, who else?) and a Fourth shall never be!

The Orthodox have seen their Byzantine Empire conquered but they have adapted well enough to save what remains of their heritage.

The People Power analysts don't want to heed the Orthodox aphorism. They go to all intellectual contortions to find out the reason and justify that People Power again could work. These drearies have enshrined People Power and made it their God!

The utilitarian amongst us would say that People Power has long lost its functionality. Anthropologists of religion would say that if ritual has lost functionality, it dies. This is not to say that the principles of religion have died (in can't, Darwinian evolution says religion is adaptive).

New versions of the old theme may emerge and carry on the principles. If the new version is adaptive then it will succeed.

People Power has lost its functionality. No sense in propping it up! Let it flow with history.

To which we can paraphrase Mabini. "Drown People Power but save its principles!"

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