Not yet over
The chapel bell rang almost in unison with the siren howling all over the place, intermittently squeaking as it passes by the narrow street of Lapuz Norte, La Paz. Radio transistors were in full volume while people flock to the plaza that is just a stone's throw away from our house. Men and women alike wore happy faces and shared a festive ambiance embracing each other with almost tears in their eyes.
I was 10 years old then.
"Looters and vandals have entered Malacañang," the radio broadcaster said in vernacular, adding, "Marcos is out! Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!"
Only then that I realized that the strongman they call "Makoy" was just kicked out from Malacañang and a new government was about to be formed with Tita Cory, the bespectacled widow who looks more of a resident housewife than a statesperson, leading the pack.
For the lack of the right word let me say that the feeling then was feisty--people in different genres, classes, and events came together neatly and forcefully in February, 1986 to cause the fa ll of the Emelda, rather Marcos, dictatorship.
Who won't be awed with the turning of events? Ferdi's bootlickers turning against himself, the civil disobedience launched by his opposite alter egos Cory and Cardinal Sin, and, on top of it all, the multitudes of people from all walks of life marching in Edsa with only their rosaries and flowers as shields against the M16-boosted, tank-reinforced camouflaged loyalists.
When my mom Diana asked me few days after the revolt to accompany her at University of Iloilo where she teaches, I gave her my nod with thrill on my mind wondering what might be happening there amid Edsa revelries.
I was not surprised. Classes were suspended, of course, and just like everywhere else, the school was also covered with streamers while retro-fashioned students and sharp-tongued teachers alike wore sunflower-colored ribbons and what not.
People crowding all over the hallways, parking spaces and corridors were showered by speeches and pamphlets at the quadrangle, all blabbing against the former dictatorial regime and asking for support to the new government. The crowd can't say more but agree. "Tama na! Sobra na! Napalitan na! Panalo na!" they cried.
When everybody was in jubilation, I heard a group of students at the corner of the stage shout "but the war is not yet over!" Noticeably, they wanted to say something but they were denied and the closed-fisted organizers of the program just proceeded with the singing of the famous revolutionary song "Ang Bayan Ko" to end the hours-long prayer rally.
That was it.
And the great waves turned into gushes. It calmed, and died unnoticed.
Twenty years later and true to Edsa's ideals, Filipinos are now somehow free to speak their mind, to air their grievances. Not too much reckless arrests. Not too much physical tortures. But that is about all that Edsa can offer right now. That is all Edsa can clearly boast for.
We may have a voice now courtesy of Edsa. But what is it for? Few, if not none, is listening, anyway. Yes, we do periodic elections that are alien during Marcos regime. But is it the votes or the politicians' money and clout that count?
We are back exactly to where we started. Juan dela Cruz has reclaimed his middle names: Poverty and corruption, lots of it! Traditional vested interests are back. Political order is out of order. National purpose is adrift. Education, la bor and justice are turned into a shaggy dog story. National unity is in tatters. The poor are still poor, and the rich are still in charge. Capitalism emerges stronger and unrestricted than ever. Edsa spirit is near death.
Two decades later and there's hardly anything left to be said about Edsa. There are no sirens, nor festive mass actions anymore. No media hypes. No school rallies. No yellow pamphlets. No L-shaped finger signs. People consider the day ordinary, except that it is a non-working holiday. In fact in a survey two years ago, it was found out that more than half of the Filipino youth are not even aware of what Edsa is all about!
I am now a workhorse physics teacher and school paper moderator of a Jesuit institution in the metropolis. Yet every time Edsa is marked, I always remember those UI guys in jeans and red Che Guevara shirts who, though in an anticlimax fashion, bravely reminded us that "the war is not yet over."
(Engr. Herman Lagon is a graduate of University of Iloilo Batch '96 and worked as a journalist for six years in a national paper and two community dailies in Western Visayas. He is presently teaching physics and journalism at Ateneo de Iloilo while finishing his graduate studies in UI.)