By raising the possibility of pure violence, the Revolution turns every man
against every form of authority and thus threatens to rob society of its soul. In
doing so, it converts society into a spectral version of itself. It is in light of this
permanent possibility of social death that authority becomes essential as a way
of resurrecting social life. Furthermore, it is an authority that, as Mabini repeatedly
reminds us, resides in the people.35 The notion of popular sovereignty thus
turns on (in all senses of that phrase) the Revolution as much as the Revolution
promises to return popular sovereignty. On one hand, popular sovereignty
seeks to contain the Revolution from unleashing pure violence that will kill
society. On the other, it is precisely the Revolution that creates the people as
the locus of sovereign power in the first place. The Revolution then constantly
disrupts the question of sovereignty. It challenges not only the colonial state’s
and the Catholic Church’s claims of possessing absolute power; it also sabotages
popular assertions of such power. Similarly, the Revolution dramatizes
the innate capacity of a people guided by a law natural to all humans to
protect their rights and demand recognition from others. At the same time, it
threatens to violate not only positive human laws but putative natural laws—
what today we more commonly refer to as “human rights”—giving rise to a
spectral society incapable of making or preserving laws as such, and thereby
unable to distinguish between just and unjust acts.