When People Power Stunned The World

By Angela Stuart-Santiago

Cover of the author's new book on EDSA

All through EDSA, the words of Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and occultist, kept ringing in my mind: “Whatever is born or done this moment of time has the qualities of this moment of time.” An astrological dictum on the significance of beginnings in the context of cycles and recurrence. As the awesome four days of People Power unfolded, culminating in Cory’s oathtaking and closing with Marcos’s flight, I was seeing it as a birth moment for the nation, a new pattern set, of a people breaking out of the old and trying out new ways of being and behaving for the sake of the common good.  [EDSA Uno...page 329]

The unexpected display of People Power when Filipinos stopped the tanks in EDSA-Ortigas was mirrored dramatically in the map of the heavens at the time.  The moon stood alone in the eastern hemisphere, while the eight other planets, led by the sun, were gathered in the western hemisphere. In mundane astrology, the moon signifies the people, the sun and planets signify the government and its support systems.

Ordinarily, the people could, would, have been easily overpowered by the dictator's forces.  When the planets are preponderantly positioned in the western hemisphere, the native (whether individual or nation)  is one to whom things happen rather than one who makes things happen.  

Alan Oken puts it this way:

A majority of the planets in the east (rising and culminating bodies) indicates a strong desire to initiate every phase of life activities.  It shows the need to learn cooperation with others, but it bestows the ability to set up personal life circumstances. Planets in the west (those setting or approaching the Nadir), however, cause natives to become extremely dependent on other people's activities in order to integrate their own motivations and drives.  A western predominance gives a natural cooperative sense, but it is through such joint efforts that a western-oriented individual may succeed in life.  The difference between east and west in the astrological sense, as Marc Edmund Jones puts it, "it's like comparing an "a la carte" dinner with a "prix fixe" one.  With the former, one can choose the dishes one prefers,but the expense if often greater than the "prix fixe" meal, which is already selected but costs less.  We could say that the eastern preponderance represents Karmic sowing, while the western preponderance is indicative of Karmic reaping. [The Horoscope, The Road and Its Travelers. Bantam Book, 1974.  286-287.]

Dane Rudhyar also cites Jones: 

"The zenith meridian divides the universe (all experience) into realms of rising things (East) and setting things (West). . . . If all planets are East the native is called upon to make his own choice in every issue, and to create the issue at will; whereas if West he must accept the choices and issues of life as these are placed before him." (Marc Jones) This is a division of "outer volition."  [The Astrology of Personality. Doubleday Paperback edition, 1970. 377.]

However, when, as in our chart, there is one planet in the east, a singleton, it can serve as a powerful balance to the weight of the nine other planets in the west.

If nine planets are found in one hemisphere and the tenth in the other hemisphere, this tenth stands out powerfully, from a form point of view.  A pattern is constituted in which one planet, because of its position, is seen balancing the nine others.  It becomes an absolutely "outstanding" factor; and, to a considerable extent, destroys the implication of all the other planetary factors in the other hemisphere. Marc Jones compares this formally isolate planet ("singleton") to an aching tooth which dominates the whole consciousness.  It is a type of accentuation which is "irrational," which tends to destroy the sense of wholeness of the personality.  It is an autocratic factor dictating its singular will to the rest of the organism, which by contrast appears inchoate. [379]   

Indeed EDSA Sunday was all about the moon, the Coryistas, the people, standing out, taking the initiative and taking control simply by their presence in huge numbers, willing to die for the cause of freedom, and thereby rendering inchoate not only the Marcos camp but also the Cory-Enrile camp.  

When the people stopped the tanks, it was the end of Marcos; it was only a matter of time.  Between Cory and Enrile, however, it was masalimuot. Cory who believed she had won the presidency didn't really want to deal with Ninoy's former jailer; Enrile, who had been planning a coup to himself replace Marcos with a junta was really loathe to give way to a mere housewife.  But after that grand nonviolent display of  People Power that rendered the Marcos military helpless, Cory and Enrile had no choice but  to reconcile their differences and bow to the people's Will that they, too, join hands against the dictator.  

It helped that the isolate planet was the moon, second only to the sun in the hierarchy of powers.  It helped that the moon was rising in Leo, a commanding presence, in the first house, a most powerful house.  It helped too that the moon was waxing, approaching a full opposition with the sun, crackling with potential.  And the moon was separating from a trine with mars (the split military) in the fifth house, and applying to a trine with Uranus (rebellion), also in the fifth house, the natural house of the sign Leo, the sign of creativity and play.  The people had been happily in the throes of nonviolent revolution since February 16 when Cory called for a crony boycott, and EDSA was the unexpected and dramatic climax, helped along by the defection of Enrile, Ramos, and their security forces.

Click here for the Chronology of a Revolution: edsarevolution.com.