EDSA 30 Years Hence: Part 1 The Awakening

I vividly recall how we were out the day before, this was the 80's and as a means to earn extra, we did "mobile disco" gigs. From Paranaque news came that Enrile and Ramos had defected to the opposition. This at that time was unimaginable. In college I was a member of ADJUST the UST left party, I also wrote for the student movement with the Pambansang Linangan at Ugnayan ng mga Manunulat (PLUMA) a writer's organization. By early morning Edsa sans the flyovers and the underpasses was already filled with people coming from all walks of life to demand the downfall of the Marcos regime.

For all the millennials who would read this today, I would just want to communicate to them how our freedoms were suppressed. How one could be arrested for saying things against government. A Facebook or an Instagram would not have existed back then, even if the technology was available, only because the Information minister would kill it. It's so easy to say an opinion about how well the government was run under Marcos, how great a leader he was. Just like any other issue, we are all entitled to our own opinion. But to say that Marcos was a great President, in my opinion is like saying that the Holocaust never happened, that it was a figment of imagination.

We lived a relatively privileged life, we were middle-class and in fact partly the clan was a member of the ruling class with Tito Aguedo Agbayani as Governor of Pangasinan and a member of the ruling KBL. But there was something in me that woke up in those days and even prior to 1986. I realized that thousands were going hungry, indigenous people's rights were being violated, freedom of speech and expression was non-existent. In 1982 the awakening began with a history teacher who said in class and I will never forget, "history is the key to the future" it felt more meaningful as she said it in Filipino, "ang kasaysayan ay ang susi sa kinabukasan." In 1983, Sen. Ninoy Aquino was assassinated, my brother Rene and George sat down at Little Quiapo, at that time, it was still located along Matalino street, where I believe KFC now stands. Perplexed and not knowing what to do, we discussed about the nation's future. At the tender age of 15, I joined the protest movements, my friend Joel Pelayo from Claret and myself joined the August Twenty One Movement (ATOM), two of us were the initial members. Here we met veteran street parliamentarians, the likes of Joe Umali, who later became an office mate together with Franchis "Kiko" Pangilinan, From hereon, there was no turning back at 16 we were actively joining in the street protests to call for the ouster of the regime.

In college, we joined the left groups. I eventually ended up in the National Union of Students of the Philippines and PLUMA, but by this time the left split was already happening. The position was Edsa was a middle class war, not that of the masses. To me it was a matter of opinion, I felt if the dictator is out, that would make the job of "revolution" easier for the mass movement. Others disagreed, the directive from the collective was "Edsa was to be removed in history and in the minds of the people", it was a mere middle class uprising rather than a class revolution.