Why Edsa
First posted 11:41pm (Mla time)
Feb 23, 2006 Inquirer
WHAT FILIPINOS SET OUT TO DO IN METRO Manila, during those historic February days two decades ago, their countrymen also did throughout the rest of the land. Baguio City, Cebu City, Davao City were just some of the other major urban centers that saw a citizenry rise up, regardless of the consequences, to make a stand. And so the whole country stood--the people would not budge--and as a result, Ferdinand Marcos began what he thought was a retreat to the Ilocos that became a route to exile.
When Jaime Cardinal Sin and Butz Aquino called upon the people to rescue Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos from almost certain arrest and possible , the confrontation between the people and Marcos was accelerated. But it had already begun--indeed, it had, for most, begun on Aug. 21, 1983--and the one million who had shown up at Rizal Park for Cory Aquino's victory rally proved that people were prepared to keep the confrontation going however long it took.
The idea at the time was civil disobedience against a government declared by the bishops as having lost the moral authority to govern. When the Edsa Revolution began, Corazon Aquino was, in fact, in Cebu City as part of the gearing-up for what everyone expected to be a long, drawn-out campaign.
As had been strated in an escalating commitment to no longer be afraid and reclaim the freedoms that had been shamefully surrendered to Marcos in 1972--our freedoms and right to speak out--since 1983, the public was in it for the long haul. In that sense, it is perhaps mistaken to focus on the glorious days of Edsa as a freak . If it had miraculous attributes to it, it was the transformation of the Armed Forces from the enforcer and beneficiary of the dictatorship through armed might, to an institution that regained what Marcos had lost: a sense of self-control.
It would have been easy to crush people under the tread of armored personnel carriers; it would have been, considering the "New Society's" y heritage, justifiable to mow down the crowds with machine s. It would have been easy to continue the original plans to undertake a y coup, to resume its objectives once defections made it possible to wage a wider, ier revolt. The Armed Forces did not: having been saved peacefully, our military officers and men contributed to saving the country as peacefully as they could. That was the miracle, and it was exemplified by Juan Ponce Enrile, chief enforcer and one of the prime beneficiaries of martial law, apologizing to the people. No other Marcos-era lackey ever did that, and Enrile deserves credit for it to this day, regardless of what he's done since.
There are times when the many threads of a nation's history suddenly get woven together to create a tapestry. In 1983, Filipinos discovered empathy--first for Ninoy, then for all the martyrs who died when, in Jose Rizal's phrase, the country was asleep in the darkness--and then they discovered not only that they missed, but craved, democracy. The long tradition of peaceful protest that saw mass strations for independence in the 1930s had sprung back to life. The tradition of eloquence born of the Pro da Movement was reborn. The instinct for national solidarity of the Revolution, and the near-infinite capacity for sacrifice of the Revolution and Philippine-American War was revived. Most of all, the same desire for decency that had reinvigorated our society in the time of Ramon Magsaysay and the need for personal courage shown during World War II came once more to the fore. The Edsa Revolution happened because the Filipino realized what he had to be: a human being with a compelling need to live up to the imperatives of being Filipino.
Humanity is such that it takes a few to inspire the many to stand together. Destiny is such that the few will only take a stand if the motive power of the many exists to energize the few. It has proven the destiny of all subjugated peoples that there must be the inflexible, the irreconcilable, the stubborn, who will defy what is easier to surrender to--bribery and intimidation--and by so doing, convince the rest that the slave does not have to be a slave. We were a nation of slaves, but it did not mean we wanted to remain in , or that we would always be in that state. For that reason alone--going beyond what it is to be Filipino, and engaging what it means to be human in a world that has long rejected the concept of slavery--Edsa was, because it was what had to be.
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