A Deleuzian Reading of the EDSA Revolutions and the Possibility of Becoming-Revolutionary Today

• Main Author: Reyes, Raniel SM.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2014
• Subjects: Deleuze; EDSA revolution; despotism; assemblage; difference; eternal return; becoming- revolutionary
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/apssr/vol14/iss1/5; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/apssr/article/1021/viewcontent/4_Reyes_20_28corrected_20final_20final_29.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper presents a Deleuzian re-thinking of the three EDSA Revolutions in the Philippines. Its frame is limited to contemporary and critical studies found in books, journals, and newspapers. Initially, I elucidate the nature of 1986 EDSA I Revolution, to be followed by an articulation of the concepts of assemblage and difference for a re-configuration of the 1986 revolution. I highlight and explain how the Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) transfigured into an arena of collective and dynamic action of various assemblagic relations. The rhizomic interaction of heterogeneous forces in the said highway undeniably exterminated the privileging of numerous traditional representations in the Philippine society. Furthermore, I explain the transition from the EDSA I revolution going to the EDSA II with a principal thrust on the principle of the eternal return as the return of the different, and the paradoxical ever-recurrence of political tyranny. Lastly, I explicate the narrative on how the Filipino assemblage is always caught in the web of ressentiment and identity, based from the EDSA I, II, and III. Due to these degenerate consequences, this essay recommends the conception of a new brand of revolution that is critical of molar and fascist political representations―the possibility of becoming-revolutionary today.