Revisiting the Aquino MagicINTRODUCTION

Aquino Magic is the distinct formation of a Filipino imaginary, using the images of the martyred Sen. Benigno ‘Ninoy” Aquino and former president Corazon ‘Cory’ Aquino as prime materials that incite ‘people power’ to oust a dictator or demand change in government.

This study examines Aquino Magic as to: •how it was exhausted to intensify

US imposed neoliberal policies•how necropolitics, as a particular

type of biopolitics, is at play in contemporary Philippine politics

•how communicative capitalism ensures an unobtrusive public opinion by accentuating necropolitics in the name of democracy while effacing the symbolicefficacyofpeople’spower.

METHODOLOGYQualitative approach is employed

by closely examining texts, images, webandprintpublications,filmsandvideos that highlight the Aquino Magic phenomenon.

Textual analysis is guided by the theories on neoliberalism, Foucault’s theory of biopolitics and Dean’s communicative capitalism.

RESULTSPseudo-democracy

Cory cronyism replaced Marcos’ crony capitalism; 1987 Mendiola massacre claimed the lives of 13 peasants in a demonstration calling for

genuine land reform; and renewed alliances with the US with the agreement to maintain US bases and implement IMF imposed structural adjustment programs.The Neo-liberal individual: I am Ninoy-I am Cory

The potential for collective action or people power is discouraged and replaced with individual self-improvement and self-fulfillment.TheI am Ninoy-I am Cory

campaign was reduced to a fashion merchandise.Bio-politics and Necropolitics of the Aquino Magic

The Aquino Magic interpellates the individualtorenderself-sacrifice,byinternalizing the values set by Ninoy and Cory while sparing the government from its obligations to the people.

Ninoy’s body left untouched by embalmers, with his blood-stained suit and gunshot wounds visible to the viewing public, crystallized the notion of martyrdom, the idea of redemption and immortality.

Aquino Magic and its Communicativity

Private companies like ABS-CBN of the Lopezes supported the 1986 EDSA Uprising and became instrumental in the reproduction of Aquino Magic.

Media hype over the coverage of Cory Aquino’s burial, exudes an illusion of democracy, participation and interconnectedness while effacing the symbolicefficacyofpeople’spower.

CONCLUSIONThe Aquino

Magic only provided Filipinos with false hope of freedom and democracy while freeing the government from accountability. It exhausted the utility of death and the notion of martyrdom in the creation of an icon. It is most effective in extending neo-liberalism down to the population’s technologies of the self and in the fashionable and popular operation of communicative capitalism. To break the spell of the Aquino Magic, Filipinos must regain and retrieve a more meaningful version of people power.

REFERENCES:Dean, Joni (2010), Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics, http://commonconf.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/proofs-of-tech-fetish.pdfGatmaytan, Dante B. (2006) It’s All the Rage: Popular Uprisings and PhilippineDemocracy(PacificRimLaw&PolicyJournal;Feb,2006) retrieved from Proquest January 27, 2014.Roces,Mina(2000).Women, power and kinship poli-tics : female power in post-war Philippines. Pasig City, Anvil Publishing.Rodrigo,RaulandRoces,MarianP.,(2009)Cory Magic: Her People’s Stories (Quezon City: ABS-CBN Publishing Inc.)Films:Salamat, President Cory: 1933-2009 A Tribute to the Mother of Philippine Democracy.Produced by Eugenio Lopez III and Charo Santos-Concio, ABS-CBN, 2009The Last Journey of Ninoy: as told through the last interview of Cory. Directed by JunReyes,ProducedbyBenignoAquinoJr.Foundationand Unitel Productions, 2009

Mae Urtal Caralde, MA Media Studies (Film)

UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINESCollege of Mass CommunicationGraduate Studies Department

MAPUA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSchool Of Multimedia and Visual Arts

Intramuros, Manila, Philippinescontact details: mae.caralde@gmail.com