Rallies against Estrada are being organized. Student activism, which we thought was dead because everyone was auditioning to be on MTV, might even be resurrected. Show business is an aspect of Philippine life also apparent in the split-level Catholicism practiced by many. They can keep mistresses and break other commandments, but as long as they go home to their legal wives and attend church on Sundays they maintain the veneer of respectability. During the Marcos regime, one could denounce the dictatorship with no regard for his personal safety, and then attend one of Imelda's fabulous parties.
Nothing is real, everything is for show.
The historian Reynaldo Ileto has shown that the Philippine Revolution of 1898 bore the themes of the pasyon, the narrative of the passion of Jesus Christ performed during Lent. Like Christ, the national hero Jose Rizal suffered and died at the hands of the colonizers. The themes were seen again in the protest movement which began with the assassination of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983 and ended with the peaceful Edsa revolution of 1986. It's said that Filipinos do not like confrontation. Someone has to die in order to galvanize them into action.