Treasury Bills

refuge bringing food and blankets for the soldiers. Negotiations between Enrile and the loyalist General Ver gave the rebels precious time and by the time loyalist forces were finally sent next day to crush the rebellion more than 50,000 civilians had gathered to protect the two rebel camps. A human barricade met the advancing soldiers. This swelled to more than a million people the following day (February 24), comprising unarmed civilians like students, nuns, priests, seminarians, middle class professionals and others who refused to allow the loyalist soldiers to attack the camps. Faced with this kind of passive resistance as the people sat on the streets and kept vigil, the loyalist forces could not attack. The air force pilots sent to bomb the camps could not bear to slaughter defenceless citizens and defected to the side of the rebels (David: 1986). It was a triumph of 'people's power' over the armed might of dictatorship.