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RELEVANT LINKS
- PCIJ BLOG | THAILAND: ELECTORAL REDEMPTION OR POLITICAL MASSACRE?
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i
R E P O R T — THAT BUMPY RIDE CALLED DEMOCRACY
THE ROAD AHEAD
Every crisis is also an opportunity, it is said. In the Philippines, economic ruin, corruption, and human-rights violations simmered for decades, leading to conflicts of different sorts and degrees until the middle class and the poorer sections of society, in cities or rural areas, reached a critical point of agreement about the kind of country they wanted, after kicking out the dictator. Today, 22 years after the return of democratic rule, we Filipinos are still asking how far we have come in this journey called democracy.
As for the Thais, some are hoping that greater space is created, the better for wider acceptance of the idea of one person having an equal political voice (including in votes) as the other. This, after all, is a core norm that is among the strongest pillars of democratic rule anywhere and works for both the powerful and the voiceless alike.
It’s now September, a month in which both the Philippines and Thailand experienced a crucial event in their respective histories. Sept. 11, 1972 marked Marcos’s declaration of martial law. In Thailand, the second anniversary of the latest military coup against ex-prime minister Thaksin is today, Sept. 16.
Again, two different events in two very different contexts happening in these Southeast Asian neighbors. But in their own ways, these are our reminders that democracy — or attempts at it — makes for a rocky, circuitous process, and sometimes, a very painful one.
Johanna Son is a Filipino journalist based in Bangkok and is director of Inter Press Service Asia-Pacific.
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