Crowds in Sri Lanka once stormed the presidential palace, forcing their leader to flee. In France, masses filled the streets against pension reforms, and in Thailand, young people braved water cannons and prison threats to demand change. These uprisings show what happens when citizens can no longer endure the betrayal of those in power—and the Philippines is not far from reaching that breaking point.
What fuels such upheavals is not mere inconvenience, but an accumulation of wounds left unattended. People tolerate hardship when they believe in the integrity of their leaders, but the moment rulers plunder funds meant for schools, hospitals, roads, and flood defenses, patience wears thin. It is not poverty alone that drives them to rise; it is the insult of seeing billions lost to corruption while they endure daily miseries. A starving man can endure hunger, but not the sight of banquets stolen from his plate.
In the Philippines, the figures speak for themselves: billions vanish into the pockets of officials who smile in front of cameras and swear oaths of service while looting the treasury. It is hard to think of a single national scandal in recent years that has not involved padded contracts, overpriced equipment, or ghost projects. Every peso stolen is a nail hammered into the coffin of public trust. When enough nails are driven, no government survives intact.
The danger, however, lies not only in the brewing anger against corruption, but in the possibility of opportunists hijacking it. The CPP-NPA-NDF, with its rigid dream of a communist society, waits like a vulture circling a wounded prey. It thrives in times of chaos, recruiting the disillusioned, exploiting the rage of the betrayed, and promising liberation in exchange for obedience. But the ideology it peddles strips people of the very freedoms they thought they were fighting for.
One must remember: communism has not brought prosperity where it has triumphed. It has built walls, silenced dissent, and forced uniformity at gunpoint. The democratic flaws of the Philippines are many, but democracy allows protest, satire, choice, and accountability—values that would evaporate under a one-party rule that worships the state as god. Angry citizens may chase the corrupt, but they must never invite another master that chains them tighter than the last.
This is why discernment is vital. Anger is necessary, for without it, people would accept injustice like cattle trained to bow their heads. But anger without direction can destroy more than it saves. To rise against thieves is righteous; to replace them with tyrants in red is folly. The mob can roar against the plunderers, but it must roar as defenders of liberty, not as torchbearers of a system that punishes dissent with prison and death.
Filipinos know how to rise. History has shown that when the cup overflows, the streets fill with bodies and voices that cannot be silenced. But history also teaches that revolutions do not end with the ouster of villains; they end with a new struggle over what comes next. This “next” is where wisdom must prevail, ensuring that the fight against corruption strengthens democracy instead of burying it.
If citizens must march, let them march not behind ideologues who dream of godless utopias, but behind the banner of honest governance, accountability, and human dignity. The enemy is corruption, not democracy itself. To uproot thieves from power is justice; to safeguard freedoms in the process is wisdom. The rising of the people must be remembered not as a fall into another abyss, but as a turning point where a nation chose its future with both passion and clarity.
