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The People Power Revolution, Philippines 1986

• Mark John Sanchez

For a moment, everything seemed possible. From February 22 to 25, 1986, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos gathered on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue to protest President Ferdinand Marcos and his claim that he had won re-election over Corazon Aquino.

Soon, Marcos and his family were forced to abdicate power and leave the Philippines . Many were optimistic that the Philippines, finally rid of the dictator, would adopt policies to address the economic and social inequalities that had only increased under Marcos’s twenty-year rule. This People Power Revolution surprised and inspired anti-authoritarian activists around the world.

Ferdinand Marcos had been president of the Philippines since 1965. After declaring martial law in 1972, he suspended and eventually rewrote the Philippine constitution, curtailed civil liberties, and concentrated power in the executive branch and among his closest allies. Marcos had tens of thousands of opponents arrested and thousands tortured, killed, or disappeared.

The Sunday Express headline from September 24, 1972 shortly after Marcos declared martial law.

For two decades, Filipinos lived under authoritarian rule while Marcos and his allies enriched themselves through ownership of Philippine press and industry outlets and through the siphoning of funds from U.S., World Bank , and International Monetary Fund loans.

The People Power movement had been building since well before Marcos’s declaration of martial law. Committed activists who organized underground in the Philippines, in exile, and in the diaspora worked tirelessly to broadcast news of the Marcoses’ human rights violations and ill-gotten wealth globally.

For many years, however, much of the world—the U.S. government in particular—was perfectly willing to overlook the corruption of the Marcoses in exchange for an anti-Communist bulwark in Southeast Asia.

By the mid-1980s, however, foreign policy calculations had shifted against Marcos in crucial ways.

Senator Benigno Aquino in an interview with Pat Robertson before his assassination in 1983.

The August 1983 assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. was seen by many around the world as a particularly brazen act of political retribution. Furthermore, rumors about Marcos’s health (he was suffering from lupus and regularly undergoing dialysis at the time) led many of his allies in the Philippines and beyond to begin speculating about the dictator’s successors.

When Ferdinand Marcos boldly called for a “snap election” in a 1985 interview with David Brinkley, Marcos’s opponents weighed whether this was an opportunity or a trap. Many times before, Marcos had tipped the electoral balances in his favor, through a rewriting of laws, outright violence, and other forms of manipulation and intimidation.

Much of the Philippine Left decided to boycott the election, fearful that participation would only serve to further legitimize the regime. The remainder of the opposition movement eventually coalesced around the widow of Senator Aquino, Corazon “Cory” Aquino.

Just as many feared, Marcos claimed victory in the election. This time, though, Filipinos refused to accept this lie. On February 22, citizens took to the streets on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). Cardinal Jaime Sin, the Archbishop of Manila, called upon Filipinos to support the peaceful protests.

Cardinal Jaime Sin pictured in 1988.

Marcos ordered the military to repress the mass action. However, a faction of military officers refused to clamp down on the protestors and chose instead to defect. This group included soldiers who had grown frustrated with corruption in the military and the Marcos regime and had earlier formed the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM).

When Marcos ordered the military to arrest detractors, Cardinal Sin called upon the people to shield them. The Catholic radio organ, Radio Veritas , became a major control center for protest communications during the People Power movement.

Close Marcos ally President Ronald Reagan eventually sent word through Senator Paul Laxalt that it was time to “cut, and cut cleanly,” signaling that Marcos no longer had the backing of his most powerful ally. On the evening of February 25, the U.S. government facilitated Marcos’s escape to Hawaii, where he would remain until his death in 1989.

Later that same night, protestors stormed Malacañang Palace, exposing the opulent wealth that the Marcos family had amassed during their time in power. As Corazon Aquino was sworn in as President, Filipinos were hailed around the world as an example of peaceful revolution and the restoration of democracy.

Corazon Aquino was inaugurated as the 11th president of the Philippines on February 25, 1986 at Sampaguita Hall.

The road ahead would not be so simple, however. In the years since 1986, the legacy of the People Power Revolution has remained uncertain. Aquino faced several coup attempts during her time in power, many of them led by the very same RAM that had helped facilitate her rise to power.

The agricultural and economic reform that many Filipinos hoped for in a post-Marcos world did not come. Peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines dissolved and leftists continued to be maligned, attacked, and hunted.

Many Filipinos expressed nostalgia for the very dictator that had been overthrown. And there have been ongoing projects of historical revisionism in the Philippines that sanitized the Marcos years.

The Marcos family have returned to the Philippines and to positions of political prominence: Ferdinand Marcos’s widow Imelda became a congresswoman and his daughter Imee a governor. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the dictator’s son and evident successor to his father’s legacy, ran for vice president in 2016 and finished a close second. Bongbong refused to concede and, to this day, continues his legal challenges to the election.

President Rodrigo Duterte talks to Imee Marcos at a wedding ceremony in Manila, September, 2016.

The most concerning outcome of the 2016 Philippine elections, however, was the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president. A close ally of the Marcoses, Duterte has drawn upon Marcos’s script for authoritarian power. He has arrested prominent opponents, curtailed civil liberties, and claimed that discipline is what is most needed for the Philippine nation.

Most infamously, Duterte launched a campaign that has resulted in tens of thousands of extrajudicial murders committed by police and military forces.

The People Power Movement offers several lessons. We can see the courageous solidarities and coalitions that might mobilize against authoritarian restrictions on civil liberties. But we must also look at the importance of finding ways to build anew and address the grievances and injustices that have made such authoritarians so popular in the first place.

The EDSA protests in 1986 were a remarkable moment in Philippine history, a moment filled with the sense of unlimited hope and possibility. And for those with democratic dreams, it provides both a lesson and a warning for the battles ahead.

DIGITAL LIBRARY

• Beginnings of Martial Law
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EDSA People Power Revolution: Then, now, and what it means for our future

The EDSA People Power Revolution was a product of many moving parts that finally amalgamated in the form of a peaceful revolution that enamored and inspired many regime changes around the world. Although it marked the culmination of Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorship and regime, it is considered to be an ongoing fight that cuts across all generations wherein we are invited to pursue justice for the past and to pursue a better future.

This online lecture—an essential and comprehensive learning material for students and a teaching tool for teachers—was prepared and conducted by MP Mendoza, historian and participant of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

Decades after ousting a dictatorship, civil resistance and street protests continue to occur against regime violence and systematic oppression in the Philippines.

Cebuano writer Emmanuel Mongaya spent a sum of his life sharing his experience of the EDSA Revolution, from chronicling events in a blog to shedding light on the cruelty of the Marcos’ regime in history books.

While Mongaya often writes for local daily Superbalita and business weekly Cebu Business Week, he still continues the fight as a former student activist on paper.

In his earlier years, Emmanuel was involved in many militant groups. He spent his time in University of San Carlos-Talamban Campus from 1979 to 1980 planning protest activities with fellow student leaders.

Among many activities, he helped organize the dawn Jogging for Freedom a month after the Ninoy assassination, the reenactment of the Ninoy assassination, and the Danao-Cebu City long march in 1984.

“From 1981 to 1985 in Cebu, I joined the Nagkahiusang Sugbo Alang sa Demokrasya (NASUD), the Cebu Against People’s Persecution (CAPP), and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN),” he said.

Having experienced being blasted by water from a firetruck and chased by anti-riot policemen, he understood the fear and weight of being an activist during the Martial Law era.

On July 11, 1985, Fr. Rudy Romano, whose devoted activism became well known in Cebu, was abducted by the military. Prior to this, Emmanuel had worked with Fr. Romano in many protests and activities.

Fearing that Emmanuel may be next on the military’s abduction list, his father, Doroy Mongaya, brought him to Quezon City to stay with his aunt and uncle in October 1985.

At this time, Emmanuel enrolled for his second semester studying Political Science at the San Sebastian College – Recoletos in Quiapo, Manila. It wasn’t long until he joined student-led activities and rallies.

Of course, his most unforgettable moments as a student activist were yet to unveil until February 23, 1986 – a day most Filipinos will never forget.

Emmanuel recollects the events that transpired during that day.

“Our student group represented SSC-R at one big post-snap election rally at Luneta with Cory Aquino. We were supposed to meet at the campus at 10 am on February 23, 1986,” he said.

He recalls having only known the events at EDSA after their group’s meeting in Sta. Mesa the evening prior.

“Only two of us met that morning as tension at Mendiola intensified. I watched the crowd dismantling the barbed wire barricades when we had to run and hide after shots rang out,” he added.

Unable to recognize familiar faces in Mendiola, he and his colleague decided to go to EDSA. Upon reaching the corner in Aurora, Cubao, Emmanuel saw the whole place filled with people all the way to Camp Crame.

“It looked like a sea of people mostly clad in yellow, flashing the Laban hand sign, streamers, and various banners,” he added.

Emmanuel remembers seeing student leaders and activists from UP Diliman being led by then-student council chair Kiko Pangilinan moving towards the two camps. He showed them the more militant clenched fist salute while moving closer to Camp Crame.

At dawn the next day, the loud sound of Radio Veritas woke the Mongaya household with coverage of tension at Camp Crame.

“I waited for Tiyo Jun to go out of the house before I could return to Edsa where I just walked with people, chanting, and raising the clenched fist,” he said.

Needless to say, these were scary times for activists like Emmanuel considering the violence that had been documented in multiple historical accounts and journals.

For Emmanuel, the martial law and dictatorship years were never golden. 

He said that as a child, he would long for the comfortable years before the declaration in 1972.

When dictator Ferdinand Marcos closed media establishments during Martial Law, his father – who was also a journalist – lost his job as an editor in an outlet that closed when martial law was declared in 1972.

According to him, his father lost another job during the martial law regime while working at Cebu Daily Times as editor-in-chief. Emmanuel mentioned the Cebu Daily Times later shut down after another outlet that was funded by “crony capital” emerged in 1982.

“It was ironic though. After EDSA, I soon found myself in the [media outlet] for nearly two decades,” he joked.

Today, Emmanuel believes that the system he had hoped for to be better had evolved into something “grotesque.”

“Of course, the basic changes I hoped did not happen… Unfortunately, the return of traditional politics soon swallowed the kind of new politics I hoped would grow strong,” he regretted.

Despite this, he plans to continue fighting by writing history pieces to remind people about those years of oppression and silencing dissent.

One can even read his unfinished account of the 4-day strike in October 1984 .

“Through the decades, the system evolved into something so grotesque we find today. However, EDSA 1 continues to inspire,” he said.

“The Filipino people can unite, muster enough courage, and oust a dictatorship.” – Rappler.com

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Reflecting on Edsa

In the history of every modern-day democracy, the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution stands out as the most astonishing, not only because it removed without bloodshed a cruel dictator in Ferdinand Marcos, but also because, all intents and purposes taken together, it has at least healed the malignancy of the Filipino nation’s broken soul.

But the wound of disunity threatens us again. Three decades later, Filipinos are still wanting in terms of the things they deserve from their own government. Edsa should have taught us how to elect the right persons for public office. But across the many regions of the country, we can only agonize in disbelief as we witness overlords in absolute control of our beloved land.

It is wrong, however, to put the blame on the ordinary Filipino. The majority did not benefit from Edsa. In fact, whole families still roam our busy streets, scavenging for soiled food. While towering edifices rise in the metropolis, thousands of children have remained hungry and without a home. As a society left behind by the modernity of the Western way of life, we can only indict our leaders, past and present, who exploited Edsa and abused its spirit and memory. Indeed, we have many cunning politicians who shamelessly invoke the concept of human welfare, or even the pursuit of happiness, in order to justify and brandish their particular style of tyranny.

History tells us that an autocrat who rules by means of some populist agenda is not impaired as to his knowledge of the timeless relevance of the principles of justice. But he distorts and uses the same in order to advance his vested interests. In the desire to destroy his enemies, a dictator only has one marching order to his docile and willing accomplices: to follow him without question. This type of loyalty is perhaps the most dangerous there is. It is the same kind of blind obedience that has caused honorable men to kill in the name of their god!

When President Corazon Aquino came to power in 1986, we believed then that it is not really intellectual brilliance but human virtue that legitimizes political leadership. And yet, in reality, it is the dictator who actually foregoes the advice of academics, as he will do things as he sees fit. He is so afraid of the wisdom of old. He fears engaging the titans of history. Edmund Burke elaborates: “What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or to medicine? … In this deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor.”

Edsa gave the world a new way of looking at things. We stand firm that, as a people, we cannot allow those who hold positions of power to take advantage of us. Any form of violent counterrevolution can only mean that oppression has been maintained, although the oppressors may have changed the color of their skin. Burke says it well: “Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the servants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general welfare; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense anything like servants.”

The raison d’être of Edsa is not Aquino or Marcos. Edsa is the story of the Filipino as a freedom-loving people. Burke appears precise: “A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.”

It is every generation’s principal right to overthrow any ruthless despot. Freedom, ultimately, is an instrument for societal transformation. Unless we prevent ourselves from degenerating into a country that treats justice and the rights of people as some sort of a commodity that only the affluent can enjoy, the potent force of the radical change that was Edsa will continue to elude us.

Christopher Ryan Maboloc is assistant professor of philosophy at Ateneo de Davao University. He has a master’s degree in applied ethics from Linkoping University in Sweden. He was trained in democracy and governance at the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Bonn and Berlin, Germany.

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Today’s front page, Sunday, May 12, 2024

The 1986 Edsa Revolution: Lessons learned, then and now

• Joel C. Paredes
• February 20, 2022
• 11 minute read

Table of Contents Hide

Us connection, ‘disempowered’ people, euphoria, reality check, killings go on, post-edsa, ‘new direction’, the other side of the story, a fragile democracy.

SILVESTRE Afable, until now, remains awestruck with the “mercurial emotions” of over a million people who took to the streets for a four-day vigil to protect military rebels during the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.

As the Ministry of National Defense (MND) information service chief, he was the only civilian in that hurriedly organized meeting on February 22, 1986, when then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Gen. Fidel Ramos, then chief of the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police (PC-INP), declared they were withdrawing support from then President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Afable confided that, at first, it was really only a matter of their survival after Malacañang uncovered a coup plot which, Afable said, was initially hatched by a group of disgruntled military officers led by then Col. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, who called themselves the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM).

Afable recalled phoning his family, telling them he might die at any moment, if the government troops loyal to the President moved in to quell the military uprising.

The strongman had just been proclaimed winner of the February 7 snap elections against popular opposition candidate Corazon Aquino, widow of Benigno ”Ninoy” Aquino Jr., who was gunned down on August 21, 1983, upon returning from a three-year US exile.

AFABLE admitted that the military rebels had “strategically” linked with US authorities as early as September, even before Marcos called for a presidential election amid pressure from Washington.

“At that point in time, the coordination with US elements was already very active with the rebel groups,” he said. That was also the time when the RAM’s “planning became a serious effort,” according to Afable.

Meanwhile, crowds had just been drawn to Edsa, outside Camps Aguinaldo and Crame, by a call from influential Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin, as droves of officers, lawmakers and high-profile government officials started abandoning the Marcos camp after his pyrrhic victory. The “revolution of the people,” General Ramos called it, after what began as a military uprising drew civilians pledged to protect the rebel soldiers.

“That was the first time that I realized that Filipinos were really crazy if you awaken their emotions. They will not sleep. They will not go home,” he said. “It’s really hair-raising to look at a million people around you. It gives you an insight on what kind of people we were [then],” Afable said.

And yet, Afable believes that while he finds the 1986 People Power Revolution that ousted Marcos after 21 years in power remains to be relevant today, it might not happen again for different reasons.

IN Afable’s view,  the  Edsa revolt “was more of the middle class. These are people who had lots of aspirations.”

“[But] people now are very disempowered economically,” he said. “Today, people are totally different. They’re so hard up. It’s very hard to awaken any political ideals.”

He was also hardly surprised that Enrile and Honasan have since mended ties with the Marcoses, throwing their support behind the strongman’s son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., in his bid this May 9 to regain the presidency his father lost.

“JPE [Enrile] is really a pure pragmatist. He makes decisions on the parameter of pragmatic things,” Afable said. He also painted Honasan as, “such a congenial person with a lot of patriotism,” adding he is one who “would not just shoot a person.”

Saying that “he [Honasan] took it as a matter of political expediency,” Afable insisted that Honasan remains allied to his Philippine Military Academy classmate  Ping Lacson, another presidential hopeful, and “had simply accepted the support of BBM [Bongbong Marcos].”

Honasan was named part of the Senate slate of Marcos Jr., who framed his choices as in line with his UniTeam’s consistent vision of national unity for progress.

Meanwhile, Afable noted how, under liberal democracy, “we have not moved upwards” despite the promises of leaders in the post-Marcos era. “We never really broke the cycle of corruption even if we had brought him [Marcos] down,” said Afable, who ironically started as a social activist of the left-wing Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) at the University of the Philippines. After Edsa, Afable continued to serve the government in various capacities, and, before returning home to Baguio,  was part of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s cabinet.

THOUGH they were caught up in the euphoria of the “1986 People Power,” Dr. Aurora Parong was not blind to the background of the coup plotters with whom they shared the final moments that led to the ouster of the late strongman.

“These are the people who ordered the [political dissidents’] arrest. [Juan Ponce] Enrile and [Fidel] Ramos, they knew the torturers of the martial law regime,” said Parong, a member the Medical Action Group (MAG), which provided medical assistance to Edsa protesters.

She had been active with the MAG following her release in 1984 from over a year in detention for charges of inciting to rebellion, a case that stemmed from her choice to practice medicine in her hometown of Bayombong in Nueva Vizcaya.

“I kept asking myself, ‘Was it right to support them, just to oust Marcos?’” Parong recalled.

Still, Parong noted that she eventually considered the Edsa uprising as part of a continuing struggle against the dictatorship, since her student days at the University of the Philippines. Her idealism, she pointed out, was also what prompted her to return to the barrio and set up her own clinic after graduation.

On the second day at Edsa, Parong already had a hint that there won’t be any violence. Their vigil, she recalled, had included parents and their children, along with people who never really had any political involvement.

“It was already like a picnic. Still, we maintained our vigilance since you really don’t know what will happen later,” she said.

ON those four historic days, student leader Leandro Alejandro and his wife Lidy were manning the Bayan secretariat after left-wing militants joined Corazon Aquino’s call for civil disobedience.

“We went to Edsa and helped mobilize people, not just in support of the mutineers but because it was an uprising against the dictatorship,” said Lidy. “ S’yempre, merong pag-aalinlangan dahil nandiyan na yung mga elite ume-eksena . Meron kasi tayong kasabihan: ikaw ang nagtanim, nag-ani at nagluto, pero iba ang kakain [Of course there was hesitation, because the elite were starting to project themselves. We have a saying: you plant the seeds, harvest and cook, but someone else eats].”

Worse, they were accused of being “outsiders” during the uprising because a big segment of the militant movement joined the boycott of the “sham” snap elections.

No less than Bayan chair, the late Sen. Lorenzo Tañada, the “grand old man of the Philippine opposition,” went on leave from the alliance, which was trying to build a wide anti-dictatorship network, and decided to campaign for Mrs. Aquino.

“So, Cory lost [the election]. She was cheated.  It was when Marcos was proclaimed the winner and that was enough reason to mobilize the people towards civil disobedience,” Liddy said. Then, when Corazon Aquino was finally swept to power, the militants were largely marginalized.

Meanwhile, Parong volunteered in the new government community health program, with then DSWD Secretary Mita Pardo de Tavera. She saw the bright prospects of a new government anchored and the accompanying democratic space, when Mrs. Aquino ordered the release of all political prisoners and convened a commission to draft a new Constitution under a “revolutionary government.”

On November 13, 1986, however, tragedy struck: Kilusang Mayo Uno  (KMU) leader Rolando Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay  were found dead in Antipolo, Rizal—their bodies mutilated.

Ka Lando, as he was known in the Labor movement, was one of the handfuls of militants who opened a dialogue with the new President, particularly in the labor sector, after joining a unity rally during the May 1 Labor Day celebration that year.

A National Bureau of Investigation report said the killings were a prelude to the staging of “God Save the Queen,” a coup plot blamed on the RAM to rid the Aquino Cabinet of left-wing members. After three decades, the Antipolo Regional Trial Court found three RAM members guilty of two counts of murder and meted with the penalty of up to 40 years imprisonment. Nine other accused remain at large, and the brains behind the killings remained a mystery.

On January 22, 1987, the farmers’ march calling for comprehensive land reforms ended in violence when anti-riot personnel, including lawmen in plain clothes, opened fire on unarmed protesters, killing at least 12 and injuring 51 protesters near Mendiola Bridge leading to Malacañang Palace.

A month later, a platoon of government troops killed 17 farmers and their families, including six children, in Sitio Padlao in Lupao, Nueva Ecija, in retaliation for the death of their commanding officer who was sniped by New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas.

After the “Lupao Massacre,” Mrs. Aquino immediately declared “total war” against the communist rebels despite talks of possible peace to end the communist insurgency, one of the reasons Marcos had used to justify Martial Law in 1972. At least 24 soldiers of the 14th Infantry Battalion were tried before a military court but were all acquitted.

Parong, who was then already a member of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, recalled that Sister Mariani Dimaranan, the TFD chair, along with Sen. Jose Diokno, resigned from the Presidential Human Rights Commission to protest of the new government’s “total war” policy.

On September 19, 1987, Lean Alejandro was on his way to the Bayan office in Quezon City when a van cut into the path of his vehicle; a gunman rolled down the driver’s window and fatally shot him in the back and face with a single bullet. He had just announced at a National Press Club news conference the militants’ plans for a nationwide strike against the military’s role in government.

Lidy, his widow, said she was never approached by any investigator on the case and the official probe was suddenly stopped two weeks later. No suspect was charged in court.

Before Mrs. Aquino’s term ended in 1992, a group of non-government organizations tagged some 50 right-wing vigilante groups as being backed by the military, citing a wave of human-rights abuses that resulted in the deaths of 1,064 people, mostly farmers and workers, the disappearance of 830 others and 135 cases of massacre.

“The insurgency continued because the changes that they were expecting never happened,” Parong said. Reforms that were integrated in government, she noted, “had not really changed the mindset of the military and police related to human rights.”

Nonetheless, Parong said Edsa remains relevant, not just because it continued to inspire nonviolent regime change, as seen in East Germany and many other former Soviet bloc countries at the end of the Cold War era in 1989.

The struggle never ended, in her view.

“For several years, there were struggles against the dictatorship and there were struggles for economic change, but Edsa would not have happened unless several sectors organized themselves, and they had been struggling for sectoral changes,” she said.

She also cited how the succeeding governments recognized there were, indeed, political prisoners, although human-rights abuses continue to hound the country.

Parong participated in seeking reparations from the Marcoses, who merely offered a “compromise settlement” of $150 million, while they were exiled in Hawaii. The negotiations failed because the Marcoses’ proposed settlement was considered to be a “mere donation” when the class suit involved nearly $2 billion.

In 2014, Parong, who had worked for Amnesty International, was appointed to the Human Rights Victims Claims Board by then President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, which led to the indemnification of 11,103 martial law victims from the alleged P10 billion in ill-gotten wealth recovered in Swiss banks.

FORMER Rep. Jonathan dela Cruz concedes that people were already looking for a “new direction” amid the public outrage triggered by the 1983 Aquino assassination.

The snowballing protest movement was also compounded by the global economic crisis, its headwinds lashing the Philippine economy which contracted by 7.3 percent for two consecutive years starting 1984.  Mr. Marcos’s critics blamed the economic nosedive on the country’s  “deb-driven” growth, along with the mismanagement of “crony-monopolized” sectors.

Dela Cruz, then the country’s ambassador-at-large in the Middle East—the leading destination of overseas Filipino workers—said that while there was a continuing clamor for change, “there was also a  continuing effort of  the old oligarchy to get back at Marcos.”

These problems, he said, were compounded by  the US factor, since Mr. Marcos “was trying to stir away from the handshake of the big powers like America.” He added, but did not elaborate, that the continuing US pressure from Congress and media which fueled articles against the regime “was a campaign started a long time ago by certain forces in the US.”

IN the meantime, Dela Cruz said Mr. Marcos was trying to get ahead with “liberalizing efforts” following years of martial law, which he lifted in 1981 while retaining many of his powers.

At the height of the Edsa revolution, Dela Cruz claimed that the majority in the armed forces actually remained loyal to the President “until the  last minute.”

“So, if you are talking about crushing the anti-Marcos protests, he could have done it, but he decided to go into exile to prevent any bloodshed,” Dela Cruz added.

He admitted that a “big factor” in Marcos’ downfall was also the internal rift within the corridors of power. “Everybody knew that the President was sick. There were a lot of groups within the Marcos camp that was already struggling or competing for influence and power,” he said.

Despite the President’s ouster, Dela Cruz believes that Marcos can still be remembered for his vision of nation-building for the country “being more modernized and participatory” in development.

This partly explains the growing popularity of his son Bongbong, the consistent survey frontrunner among presidential aspirants in the May elections. The Marcos forces have also remained intact, including their political and economic forces.

Finally, he pointed to the sense that, for all the political and economic reforms of the past 35 years, people had “this failed expectation” from 1986 to the present.

“Our lives were never really uplifted. We essentially remain a divided country, with continuing corruption and human rights violations among other ills and problems,” he explained. “So, because of the demonization of the Marcos administration, people are  now asking, ‘What really happened?’ People became curious. Kasi ang mga magulang nila, sabi ‘ayos naman kami noon [because their parents were saying, ‘we were fine then’].”

NOW retired Supreme Court Associate Justice  Adolf Azcuna asserts that the gains at Edsa need not be taken for granted. With the restoration of democratic institutions lost during martial law, including regular elections, the people can now choose the leaders that they want, he stressed.

Even Bongbong Marcos, according to Azcuna, has benefited from the democratic institutions, now that he is guaranteed regular and free election, although “everything  is really up to the people.”

“That’s what democracy means. If you want to choose certain candidates [who] have links with the previous dictator, that’s up to them,” he said.

Still, he stressed, people should not forget the principle of accountability, enshrined in the 1987 Constitution which he helped write as a member of the constitutional commission. That Charter affirmed that “public service is a public trust” and that “public officials must at all times be accountable to the people.”

Azcuna underscored the need to be vigilant 36 years after Edsa, noting the “possibility that we can lose it [democracy].”

“We should always remember that the guardrails of democracy are free speech, free media, political opposition, and regular and fair elections. Pag ’yan ay inalis o ginawang ineffective, mag-ingat tayo at mawawala yung tunay na demokrasya natin [if we remove or make those ineffective, we should be wary as we will lose genuine democracy],” said Azcuna.

“Now, do we want to go back to the past because it is the future that some of our people want? Go back to martial law, go back to controlling the economy, go back to arrests without warrants? Kill? If that is what they want, then so be it. This is a free country,” Azcuna said.

Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, it’s interesting that all presidential aspirants promise reforms and a better life. Bongbong Marcos pushes unity, saying the country will never progress if it keeps dividing itself between past and present. Isko Moreno offers himself as an alternative to the Marcos versus Aquino narrative as represented, he said, by Marcos Jr. and Vice President Leni Robredo. The Lacson-Sotto tandem promises to fix government so as to make better lives possible. The Pacquiao-Atienza duo offers similar hopes. Leody de Guzman and Walden Bello offer more radical reforms. All of them and the rest of the standard bearers—Ernesto Abella, Norberto Gonzales, Faisal Mangondatu and Jose Montemayor—promise to fight corruption. Yet if anything has survived in 35 years of reforms since Edsa, it’s corruption, morphing across regimes. It’s anyone’s guess whether the next regime change will spell real change.

* Veteran journalist Joel C. Paredes is a former director-general of the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and holds an A.B. History degree from the University of the Philippines.

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