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[av_heading heading=’Losing the EDSA ’86 spirit’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
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Tuesday, February 21, 2017
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TODAY (February 21, 2017) marks the eve of the four-day bloodless “EDSA People Power Revolution” (February 22 to 25, 1986) that toppled the 20-year regime of the late dictator President Ferdinand Marcos. I was the-36 year-old editor of Panay News, then a fledgling weekly. Now 67, I still remember how that real-life drama unfolded.
I was listening to my transistor radio and sipping coffee at the Amigo Terrace Hotel when the big news broke out: Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Philippine Constabulary Chief Fidel Ramos had staged a failed coup d’etat and were holed in with fellow mutineers at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.
In those four days, the eyes of the rest of the world – through the magic of television – focused on the swelling anti-Marcos multitude at Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (EDSA) that eventually forced the dictator to flee to Hawaii, paving the way for President Corazon Aquino to take over even if she had “lost” to Marcos – so said the government-controlled Commission on Elections — in the February 7, 1986 snap election.
What happened thereafter is now recorded history, hence familiar to the then unborn elementary and high school students. But they must be wondering whether a strong sense of pride still lingers in their parents’ heart and mind.
Unfortunately, the 31st anniversary of People Power this week will no longer be celebrated the way it used to be. No longer will there be a pompous re-enactment of People Power that disabled the Marcos dictatorship and installed the revolutionary government of President Corazon Aquino. Instead, there will be a simple ceremony come February 25 within the four corners of Camp Aguinaldo.
On second thought, why should we be so fussy about the dark past when present events portend a recurrence of dictatorship?
As a practicing journalist, I cannot in conscience say “amen” all the time to President Rodrigo Duterte, who won my vote on May 9, 2016; present-day events are not conducive to the observance of democratic processes. Let us not ignore the reality that the President who heads the executive department is now in control of the supposedly co-equal Congress. While we are not too sure about the majority of senators, we know that at least two-thirds of congressmen have become presidential “tutas” for a reason that could be libelous when mentioned.
Rather than feel the pulse of the people, the senators and congressmen have assigned themselves the role of a Constitutional Assembly tasked to rewrite the Constitution aimed at changing our presidential form of government into a federal one. They want us to believe that federalism would pave the way for a better participatory democracy. But what if its hidden intention is to perpetuate the President in power?
Duterte knows that once he lets go of the reins, he could be made answerable to charges of extra-judicial killings, plunder and wanton graft and corruption.
Given freedom to freely speak out, we the people would have preferred a Constitutional Convention of elected delegates; not a Constituent Assembly. We cannot trust today’s clones of yesterday’s solons who willfully refused to pass a law implementing the anti-dynasty provision of the 1987 Constitution. Today they dominate elective posts in entire cities, provinces and municipalities.
Let the present generation know how it was in the pre-martial law days when President Marcos was about to end his second and last four-year term. Through the Constitutional Convention of 1971, he attempted to have the convention delegates abolish the President’s term limit through bribery. But the attempt fizzled when a conscience stricken delegate, Eduardo Quintero, literally exposed the cash-stuffed brown envelope he had received.
Marcos’ declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972 on the pretext of “reforming society” rendered the Quintero exposé toothless.
Without the EDSA Revolution of 1986, the dictator could have ruled for life. /PN
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