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THE MESSAGE. BRINGING INTO FOCUS FILIPINO PRESENCE IN AUSTRALIA
www.kalatas.com.au | Volume 6 | Number 5 | FEBRUARY 2016
OPINION
Reminiscences on Edsa ‘86
by TITUS FILIO
QUEZON CITY.
The Philippines will be observing a special holiday this month – on February 25 – to mark the celebration of the 30th Anniversary of the Edsa People
Power, the dramatic people’s uprising that ended
the reign of then president Ferdinand Marcos.
People Power in the Philippines. The year was
1986. And I was there.
Yesterday (February 1), travelling along Edsa
from Makati to Quezon City by taxi, I proudly pointed to my 13-year old son, Troy, the monument celebrating the spirit of People Power. We didn’t get off
the taxi but the very slow traffic enabled us to have a
longer look at the shrine.
“My friends and I slept there along that pavement,” I pointed somewhere to an embankment
near the Edsa gate of Camp Aguinaldo facing Camp
Crame.
“Why would you do that?” my son asked.
I would have loved to give him a quick lecture
on Philippine history but I was almost dozing off.
Still I realised I didn’t have to answer the question,
my tired son had already dozed off. To myself, I also
wondered why did we “do that”?
Probably because we lived in an exciting moment that February of 1986. Memories suddenly
brought me back to the events that led us to Edsa.
Before the actual People Power event, the great
sleepovers for me and my friends were actually at
the Batasan Pambansa where the ballots of the February 7 snap elections were being canvassed. Another big site of mass gatherings was at the La Salle in Greenhills where the Comelec people were tabulating (or manipulating) the results. Eventually
some of the tabulators walked out.
Indeed it was a time that thrilled a teenager like
me who grew up in a country under the grip of the
Marcoses. The sudden revolt at Edsa was something that promised a new era of change. I was in
my sophomore year in UP at that time and it felt
good to be part of some mission to kick out a political demon that was Marcos. Still, for a teenager like
me, the political fete was a carnival not to be missed.
I could still remember the odd mix of holy and
unholy alliances in Edsa ’