THE ROLE OF ICT
IN
EDSA DOS
(January 17-20, 2001)
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| source: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/ |
ICTs are unlikely to change the main principles of politics. But, in particular in less established democracies, this is unlikely to be the last time that the stunning advances in ICTs play a crucial role in helping the people remove a bad leader. With the new Century over a year old, technology has now played critical yet very different roles in bringing two of the world’s leaders to power.
WHAT IS EDSA II?
The EDSA II (Edsa Dos) is a four-day political events that took place on January 17-20, 2001, which toppled the President of the Philippines Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal catapulted Arroyo, who is Vice-President, as President of the country. According to supporters, the EDSA II was "popular", but referred to by critics as a conspiracy among the elite politicians and businessmen, higher position and the military's Jaime Cardinal Sin. It was fueled after 11 prosecutors of the President Joseph Estrada walked out of the impeachment trial. As a result, the crowd in EDSA grew over the course of a few days through text brigades.
People Power II was arguably the world’s first “E-revolution” - a change of government brought about by new forms of ICTs. “Texting” allowed information on former President Estrada’s corruption to be shared widely. It helped facilitate the protests at the EDSA shrine at a speed that was startling - it took only 88 hours after the collapse of impeachment to remove Estrada.
The use of mobile phones was why the mobilization (or perhaps “mobile-ization”) was so large and so rapid and thus so decisive. Estrada himself blamed his ouster on the “text messaging generation.” Mobile phone technology was not just critical in the days preceding People Power II, it had been important over a number of months. Texters started passing around messages using an exclamation mark as a symbol to call for an end to the Estrada government’s corruption, cronyism and incompetence.
The people of the Philipines will have shown one way and for that we should thank the “Text Brigade”.
People Power II was arguably the world’s first “E-revolution” - a change of government brought about by new forms of ICTs. “Texting” allowed information on former President Estrada’s corruption to be shared widely. It helped facilitate the protests at the EDSA shrine at a speed that was startling - it took only 88 hours after the collapse of impeachment to remove Estrada.
The use of mobile phones was why the mobilization (or perhaps “mobile-ization”) was so large and so rapid and thus so decisive. Estrada himself blamed his ouster on the “text messaging generation.” Mobile phone technology was not just critical in the days preceding People Power II, it had been important over a number of months. Texters started passing around messages using an exclamation mark as a symbol to call for an end to the Estrada government’s corruption, cronyism and incompetence.
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| source: www.slideshare.net |
The people of the Philipines will have shown one way and for that we should thank the “Text Brigade”.
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