EDSA Remembered

I was browsing through the cable channels tonight and as I passed by Cinema One, I was really pleased that they were showing A Dangerous Life, the old Australian-produced English language film about Ninoy Aquino's assassination and the EDSA Revolution. The film's main star was Gary Busey who portrayed the role of an American journalist covering the events. The rest of the cast however were mostly Filipinos such as Laurice Guillen (Cory Aquino), the late great Ruben Rustia (Ferdinand Marcos), and Tessie Tomas (Imelda Marcos). It was really eerie how they managed to capture the mannerisms and character of the people they were portraying, some of their scenes actually sent shivers down my spine. And although I might be a little disappointed that the movie is mostly in English, I am actually glad that the movie captured very well the spirit of those times including minute details of history that are now famous, like the government choppers landing in Crame to join the rebels or Cory's first salute to newly appointed Chief-of-Staff FVR. Yes, I had fun. Yes, I will shamelessly admit that there were several times when I just felt tears welling up in my eyes.



Watching this movie made me contemplate about several things.

First, that the EDSA Revolution is a unique social phenomenon. That no matter how many similar street actions and peaceful revolutions take place, there will only be one and only one EDSA. Call me old school, but somehow, I'll never be able to call EDSA as EDSA 1, EDSA One, or EDSA Uno. I find it quite absurd really and probably a little ridiculous and insulting when people compare movements of the recent past like EDSA 2 or 3 with the EDSA of 1986. EDSA will always be unique and one of a kind. Can anything equal something that has, supposedly, inspired the downfall of Communism in the Soviet bloc? People in the succeeding decades may have tried to replicate what happened in EDSA - the romanticism, the idealism, the patriotic songs. But sadly for the future generation, what has happened then will never happen again. It is really up for the later decades to bring about something that is uniquely its own and not copy something that it will never have the chance to equal.

Second, that power, once acquired, is truly a hard thing to give up. One scene from the movie that really got stuck in my mind was when Marcos was about to flee and went to his office to say his goodbyes. He went to his presidential table, kissed it, and sobbed. Now trying to imagine who might be sitting in front of that table in the next few months made me think of the prospects of whether that new person would respect the true power behind the table or would rather spend his days in power kissing it.

And third, that behind all the confetti and the cheers, what is happening in reality - poverty, corruption, political division - these things can never and will never be resolved by revolutions alone. The movie ended with Cory giving her speech before the US Congress, proudly proclaiming to the world that the Philippines is a democracy once more. The epilogue, however, was clear in pointing out that after all the celebrations, most of the country's problems still remained and there were still a lot of things that need to be done.

Nevertheless, I'm happy that somehow the spirit of EDSA has been renewed amongst Filipinos once more, when for years it has been forgotten and only remembered when Cory died half a year ago. I am just hoping that whether in the coming years we forgot about EDSA or not, we would still continue to move forward as a people and try our best to solve the myriad problems that we still have despite twenty-four years of restored freedom.

EDSA may have signaled the end of a dictatorship and the rebirth of democracy, but we should also remember that it was only a keystone around which we should have rebuilt our pride and dignity as a people. EDSA was only a process. The real solution is in our hands.

Photo from wikipedia.org

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long P.S.

Later this morning after I woke up, I was mulling over the idea of how some people nowadays think that they would rather that martial rule continued and that the EDSA revolution never happened.

The strongest argument to this point has always been that during the Marcos regime, at least things were stable. Communism was subdued, the Philippines received a lot of financial backing from the US, the arts flourished, yada yada. While during the Aquino administration, the country was beset by several coup attempts, the NPA became stronger, the economy continued to languish, and people remained poor.

But then again, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who say these things are the same people who would put every blame they can on the government. I suppose it stems from the local culture of not having any collective responsibility towards anything this country suffers. Yeah that's right - if something goes wrong, blame the government.

Only thing is, the people don't realize that the very reason the government exists is because it is elected into power by them in the first place. Marcos became President because we voted for him. EDSA failed (as some naysayers, which does not include this writer, prefer to describe it) because we chose to let things degenerate from then. The country continues to mire in poverty and corruption because we'd rather dump the responsibility on someone else than taking some of the responsibility ourselves.

We have always chosen the easy way out. It is truly a shame that a lot of people would rather live an easy life under a repressive regime than choose to live a responsible, challenging existence under a democracy.