Who wants a revolutionary government?

It is highly unlikely that an incumbent president or anyone connected with a ruling administration would start a revolutionary government. The very nature of a revolutionary government is precisely to inflict damage on the existing institutions and to remove the incumbent leaders and then replace them with a junta controlled by the revolutionaries.

A revolutionary government is one that abolishes the Constitution, removes the incumbent officials and takes over political power through the use of violence or forcible assumption into the executive, legislative and judicial powers. The proponents of this out-of-the box solution would be standing on a claim that the existing government has betrayed the will of the sovereign people. They would claim that they are acting in the defense of the people, and the pursuit of their rights, interests and well-being. Thus, they shall declare the abrogation of the existing Constitution, adopts a revolutionary Constitution and appoints a junta to govern the nation as a provisionary government pending the holding of a popular election.

There is a precedent that we can look back to. When President Aquino took her oath of office in February of 1986, she was doing so based on a Freedom Constitution that was hastily drafted by Joker Arroyo and merely copied largely from the 1935 fundamental law which, in 1973, was replaced by Marcos with his own Constitution. President Cory took her oath before Justice Claudio Teehankee, at exactly the same time when President Marcos took his oath as a reelected president before then Chief Justice Ramon Aquino, his classmate in UP Law. Marcos stood on the de jure constitution. Cory anchored her stance on her own revolutionary government with a de facto constitution.

 It was a moment in our history when we had two presidents and two constitutions. Had Marcos stayed in Malacañan, there would have been a constitutional crisis. But the US intervened and the Catholic Church sided with Cory. Those were the tipping points. The rest is history. The less than one million people in EDSA, including this writer, claimed to represent the 75 million citizens and the Cory forces took over when the generals led by Secretary Enrile and General Fidel Ramos abandoned their master and defected to the yellow revolutionaries. Marcos was ferried to Hawaii when all he wanted was to return to Paoay, his hometown.

It was General Aguinaldo and Andres Bonifacio who first established a revolutionary government in 1892. It was repelled by the Spanish forces. They revived it in 1894 but the factions of Magdalo under Aguinaldo and the Magdiwangs of Bonifacio kept on bickering, which was sought to be settled in the Tejeros Convention in 1897. It ended with Bonifacio being tried by a rag tag junta of the Magdalos and executed by the men of Aguinaldo. Aguinaldo's declaration of a republic in 1898 was not recognized by any foreign power. Later people from Negros started a Republic of Negros in 1899. Vicente Alvarez and Datu Mandi also established the Republica de Zamboanga in 1899.  Macario Sakay also established the Tagalog Republic in 1902. On July 27, 2013, the MNLF established a Bangsamoro Republic based in Talipao, Sulu. All these were just spurs of the moment sans popular support, much less international recognition.

Today, I have no illusion that a revolutionary government can ever get a popular support. It is just a spur of the moment and is likely to burst like a bubble. We need to unite as one in fighting COVID-19, our common enemy. This is not the time to bicker nor to think of putting up another rag tag junta.