Despite police assaults and rifle fire from rooftops, the people of Cairo did not budge until the dictator did and then put democracy in his place.

Now the people of Cairo are back in Tahrir Square assaulted by cops and shot from rooftops again. Their new govt wants to set up a dictatorship by democratic means. The elected president issued a decree that his decrees cannot be questioned. His majority in parliament passed a constitution that they will be the permanent majority there. This is the dilemma of democracy, it can vote itself to extinction.

Egypt showed what we did not that people power can topple a dictatorship by staying power even if army power does not help.

Egypt experienced what we avoided by dividing the army here that an undivided army will survive the end of its dictatorship and go on to dictate on democracy there.

But this is all for the best. Egypt is showing that the greatest temptation to a worse dictatorship is democracy. Of all things, it is the Egyptian army that is protecting democracy.

A democracy is not one where the first freely elected majority rules forever, but where minorities can become majorities in turn and the first majority cannot stop them. So the army has said it will obey only the Supreme Court and the court will obey only the constitution and not the president.

Egypt shows that when the majority use democracy to threaten democracy duty devolves on the army to protect democracy from itself. Our constitution is right after all. The army is the protector of the people and the state. The chain of command does not stop with the president, but goes past him to the constitution the army is sworn to uphold.

Egypt is showing what can happen when a country crossing from tyranny to liberty can end up in anarchy where anything goes.

This did not happen here because democracy in the Phils was not something out there, but something inside here ingrained. We toppled a tyranny not to be tyrants but to be free. So we moved smoothly from dictatorship to democracy without misstep. When all is said and everything is done after 30 years of copycat people power elsewhere, only Edsa People Power revolution has stood the test of time.

Keep well.