Here in the Philippines we have a lot of revolutions, coups, etc.
But we learned after we saw Marcos impose martial law, he then started to arrest (and the illegal hit squads killed) the opposition. And then he let the military kill Ninoy Aquino, and thought he'd get away with it... until Cory came back and won the election unexpectedly, and when he tried to quash the news that he lost, General Ramos took the side of Cory, and when Marcos sent his goons to arrest him, a million Filipinos marched on the EDSA (Main street) and blocked Marcos' soldiers, who refused to shoot unarmed civilians who included women, children and clergy who were singing hymns (Marcos' soldiers explained their unwillingness to follow orders by saying they saw a "beautiful lady who said don't shoot my children"... which was probably one of the nuns in the demonstrations but they believed it was Mama Mary, and when asked why they didn't shoot they essentially said: hey you don't disobey your mama).
There have been other similar demonstrations here (e.g. forcing the resignation of Erap), and the left is always demonstrating in Manila, and there have been several military and civilan coup attempts, but it remains taboo to call for a general imposition of martial law here, because the country is aware of how quickly that can devolve into murders and dictatorship.
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