American pie

On the very morning of the Bush inauguration, the news broke that popular protests in Manila had forced Joseph E. Estrada to resign from the presidency. The point of the exercise in the Philippines was to reclaim the political process from a weak-minded pol that aspired to 'Asian strongman' status. The gaze of those demonstrators was entirely inward. But in taking back their institutions of government from a shabby throwback to another era, Filipinos took an important step for Asia on the road from old politics to new. And, without even meaning to, they sent a significant message to the ...