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EDITORIAL
WELL, they finally got it. Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and his friends from the Reform the Armed Forces Movement are elated that President Estrada decided to move the Edsa
celebration from Feb. 25 to Feb. 22. They have every reason to be elated. That's what they've been asking for all these years.
Seemingly a minor thing, the change is in fact fraught with meaning. The difference between celebrating Edsa on the 22nd and the 25th doesn't just lie in accent or
emphasis, it lies in interpretation.
The 22nd was the day the RAM mutiny began, the 25th was the day the Edsa Revolt ended. The 22nd was the day Enrile, Lt. Gen. Fidel Ramos and the RAM in Camp
Aguinaldo after their rebellion was uncovered by Marcos. The 25th was the day the people drove away the Marcoses from Malacaņang and proclaimed a new government. The
22nd was the day a military confrontation took place
25th was the day a popular revolution swept through the country. The 22nd was the day the military made a bid for power. The 25th was the day the people made Corazon
Aquino their president.
That is the difference between night and day. That is the reason Enrile and the RAM have been demanding to see the Edsa Revolt celebrated on the 22nd. For years, they
have claimed the event as their handiwork. Ms Aquino, they said, was nowhere near Edsa (she was in Cebu at the time). She just became the what they began.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As Rep. Benigno Aquino III quite rightly points out, if there were any lucky beneficiaries of Edsa, it was Enrile and the RAM. If the people had not massed at Edsa,
they would not be around to make their expansive claims. "Pumalpak pa nga sila (They bungled their revolt)," the Tarlac congressman said. " If not for the
people, kinanyon na lang sana sila nang kinanyon, naubos sana sila (They would have been blasted by cannons, they would have been wiped out)."
A pretty accurate observation. Enrile and the RAM were not exactly in the camps out of their own volition. They were there to hide after their coup plot fizzled out,
and they might have been obliterated were it not for people power. That was what Fabian Ver was itching to do, and was begging Marcos to do: raze their hideout. And
Marcos might have agreed to do it were it not for the crowd at Edsa.
The people should be thankful they had Enrile and the RAM to rescue them from their dire straits? Enrile and the RAM should be thankful they had the people to rescue
them from their dire straits.
But in fact the people who now claim to have authored the Edsa Revolt are really its beneficiaries in ways that go deeper. For Edsa did not begin on Feb. 22, and
certainly was never begun by a military mutiny. Edsa began so much earlier: in the assassination of Ninoy Aquino years before, in the fists raised by activists and
civil libertarians years earlier, in the blood that was spilled by countless Filipinos in protest against tyranny even earlier. That was where Edsa began.
Enrile and the RAM did not create the blast that happened at Edsa, they merely lit the fuse--and quite unwittingly so, as many will argue. When the people marched to
Edsa, they were not continuing something the military had begun, they were continuing something their martyrs had begun long before. They were continuing something
they themselves had begun long before. It is enough that Enrile and the RAM should be considered part of Edsa. They should be thankful. For them to claim it is their
own--that is the height of folly
Burying the future
WE all wondered how President Estrada would preside over the Edsa celebration in his first year as President, given that he was on the opposite side of the fence when
it happened. He was in San Juan, he said, carrying out his duties as What an understatement. If we recall, he was one of the pillars of Marcos' campaign in the
"snap" elections.
We all wondered how Mr. Estrada would preside over the Edsa celebrations, and now we know. If the 13th Edsa celebration is anything to go by, he would rather the
whole thing were forgotten. It's only a tossup which is worse--the way he has allowed the Marcos cronies to come back, or the way he has allowed them to rewrite
history.
That was what happened this week. For all practical purposes, Edsa might as well not be there anymore. Edsa is no longer the handiwork of the people, it is the
handiwork of the military. It is no longer a struggle to overthrow tyranny, it is a struggle merely to overthrow Marcos. It is no longer a movement to restore
freedom and democracy, it is merely a movement to restore privilege and cronyism.
What a difference 13 years make.
Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 26, 1999
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