OPINION | Passing the Torch
by Julian Abonal and Czarina Belarmino
“Mamamatay akong hindi nakikita ang ningning ng bukang-liwayway sa aking bayan. Kayong mga nakakakita, salubungin niyo siya at ‘wag kalimutan ang mga nabulid sa dilim ng gabi.” — Elias, Noli Me Tangere
Our ancestors waged for one future throughout the 333-year-struggle against Spanish powers: a time when the Philippines stands as a nation that heeds the calls of only its people. Yet, as roots of insurgency come and go and the fears of yesterday become the bygones of tomorrow, our country dooms itself to an infinite spiral of oppression and elitist divide. After more than a century following emancipation, we Filipinos have been fighting the same battles we did back then — one against individuals who let power maneuver them rather than vice versa.
The EDSA People Power Revolution of 1986 is a household name among these battles. Over four days, from February 22 to 25, 1986, the stretch of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) teemed with millions of yellow-clad Filipinos to pressure then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. into stepping down from office and ending his 21-year regime, which is affiliated with mountains of human rights violations and plunders. Although it goes beyond liberal identity and color, such a movement was catalyzed by the calls of Cory Aquino, who was Marcos’s opponent in the SNAP elections, to boycott the firms that the latter owns or supports as an act of protest against his alleged fraudulent victory. An estimated 2 billion pesos withdrawn from crony banks, the blacklisting of San Miguel Corporation, and not a single drop of blood later, Marcos and his family fled to Guam. This historic occurrence of a peaceful protest successfully upending a decades-long military rule will later become a benchmark for Filipino resolve and democracy.
However, as Filipino idioms put it, “mahirap mamatay ang masamang damo” (T/N: harmful weeds hardly die). The rebuilding of Philippine democracy from the ground up, despite the stronger foundation, will ultimately find itself coming apart at the seams — for so long as power exists, so will those who pursue inhumane ways to grasp it.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son and namesake of the late Martial Law dictator, has earned a landslide win to the highest position of government in the country. On multiple occasions, he has vocalized his confidence in his parents’ innocence. This not only dishonors the 70,000 imprisoned, 34,000 tortured, and 3,000 killed during those dark times but also indicates the historical denialism to which the country has made itself susceptible the second he stepped foot into influence. A micro manifestation of this intent is Proclamation №. 167, which sets February 24 as a non-working holiday in lieu of February 25. This move, in addition to paralleling Marcos Sr.’s attempt to rewrite history by insisting that military rule was proclaimed on September 21, 1972, rather than two days later on the 23rd, also trivializes the essence of the holiday into marketing and leisure opportunities rather than the commemoration of one of the most significant events that molded the conviction of the Filipino collective and reshaped the current landscape of Philippine politics.
The irony of this year’s EDSA People Power Revolution anniversary is also inscribed in the very page on which the recent statement of Pres. Marcos Jr. is written. In recollection of the momentous event, he calls for one thing: unity among the Filipino people. His consistency in upholding the pillar that has reinforced the entirety of his presidential campaign, even during times like this, is admirable. Yet the polarity and divisiveness of politics being referenced in the message were reflected differently during the time of the Marcos dictatorship — the truth Marcos Jr. tries to euphemize in his family’s name. Back then, it was The Masses vs. The Marcoses or, for a more representative term, Power of the People vs. People in Power. The lack of acknowledgment of the atrocities that pillaged us Filipinos of equity and prosperity in a communication supposedly memorializing the end of this period of suffering is denial and derision in disguise. It is also a distasteful distortion of democracy to discount the individual, for the mouth of the public speaks the song of individual voices, only amplified by a common desire. We learn from nature: a flame begins with a single spark and the impulse to start anew.
It is not individualism that kills democracy. History has taught us that democracy dies at the hands of self-serving dignitaries, who seize too much power yet extend too little service. It is buried by the people waving celebratory flags as a dictator’s flesh and blood are reinstated into the walls of the very institution they marred. It rots in the looming ultimatum of charter change — an attempt to tweak the framework, which was built with the rationale of barring tyranny from the Malacañan.
Keeping ablaze the memory of the People’s Revolution of 1986 is not just a tribute to Philippine democracy but also a cry for justice, whose trail lingers in the coldness and numbness of the night. Contrary to Pres. Marcos’s belief, reconciliation cannot transpire by simply rounding us up in a room through rhetoric. He can only separate himself from his namesake if atonement, reparation, and truth prevail. Only then can the sins of the father be relieved from his son; only then is his claim for the common good worthy of acceptance.
#NeverForget #NeverAgain
