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| The relevance of EDSA  The long stretch of concrete highway from Pasay City to Caloocan City known as Epifanio de los Santos Avenue or EDSA has taken a significant role in our country’s political history since the events of February 22-26, 1986. The four-day people power uprising, called by many as EDSA I People Power Revolution, have been challenging and trying times. The uprising started when, as a result of the February 7, 1986 snap elections, the late President Ferdinand Marcos refused to relinquish power to the late President Corazon C. Aquino, mother of incumbent President Benigno S. Aquino III. Massive vote buying and stealing of ballot boxes had taken place in many areas after the elections and, later, the canvassers of Sycip, Gorres and Velayo accounting firm walked out, disappointed and frustrated over the results of the computerized counting and refusing to take part in the anomaly. What sparked the uprising was the defection of some 800 Constabulary and Army soldiers led by former President Fidel Ramos, then Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Col. Gringo Honasan of the Reform the Army Movement or RAM. The rest is history. But what is the relevance of EDSA today? The people and the opposition had used it to oust former President Joseph Estrada and to try to unseat Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Twenty-six years after the 1986 event, we have witnessed less an less people participating in the EDSA Peoples Power revolution anniversary celebration. Is it because the original spirit that had fired the uprising had already gone? We have witnessed the echoes of corruption still ringing and we still see the scars of political vendetta and power struggles still making waves across the country. And while politicians battle it out in the electoral arena and the impeachment courts, the people are missing the services that they need. It now appears that EDSA I has become a mere shadow to many. Even the young today can only half imagine the event and its significance to our people’s democratic struggle. However, it must serve as a reminder to all that if justice cannot be served through elections and on the courts of law, the people can still have a potent alternative for change.
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| The days Filipinos stood tall 
When it became clear to some segments of the military, particularly the members of the Reform the Army Movement or RAM, that the then incumbent administration would not relinquish power to Mrs. Corazon C. Aquino after a snap election on February 7. 1986, a small group of Army and constabulary soldiers joined forces at Camp Aguinaldo to hold their ground against the Marcos loyalists. The RAM forces broke away from the administration army and wore their flag patches with the red field up. Cardinal Sin called out to the people to Barricade the part of EDSA where the RAM forces were holding out. Radio anchor June Keithly and Radio Veritas organized as "rebel" radio station that gave updates on the developing events and aired calls of the people and RAM. Television stations had been taken over by rebel forces and the late President Ferdinand Marc os broadcast was cut off the air. Meanwhile on EDSA, ordinary people, vendors, religious groups, students and even the rich of Ayala and Forbes Park made their contributions and sacrifices: There was free gasoline for the "rebel" vehicles, and free food, drinks and ice cream. Women were saying prayers and holding up rosaries while the colegialas gave flowers and talked to Marcos loyalist soldiers. Construction companies sent their backhoes to cut into the highway and set up barricades while bus companies lined up their buses to block the approaching Marcos army. A memorable sight was the protesters’ holding up of over 500 radios so that loyalist soldiers can hear the calls of then Constabulary chief Fidel Ramos. Family members called out to their relatives in the Marcos army, wives and girlfriends called out to their husbands and boyfriends, friends to friends, and mothers to their sons—all asking them to leave the Marcos side and join the side of the people. And when the order came to crush the protesters with tanks and cannon shots, the army officials and their men did not follow, believing and feeling in their hearts that Filipinos are one and must not kill each other. Some 300 soldiers from Mindanao boarded a ship to join the protesters but they were arrested by Marcos loyalists. Though, men of the Air Force showed up in the air, flashing the protest Laban sign, inspiring the people below. Meanwhile, in Iloilo City, students bravely marched on city streets in defiance of the dictatorship and RAM, the students and militant groups planned to take over IBC-TV station, a symbol of Marcos rule. But the plan did not push through because on the fourth day, February 25, Marcos was flown out of the country to Hawaii. EDSA was a battle won by warm bodies over cold tanks, flowers over guns, and by pretty colegiala smiles over military frowns. The people had won a revolution without firing a single shot. On the military side, only one army loyalist had died during the event. The victory of EDSA I, as they called it later, became an inspiration for other democratic movements in other parts of the world. World leaders recognized Cory Aquino as the new Philippine leader, and people all over the world admired and respected the Filipinos. It was a time when the Filipinos had stood tall. But seeing later events unfold as one leader after another took over the reins of the government and as corruption continued to cast doubt on our kind of democracy, can we still invoke the name of EDSA I and stand tall before the world? | |
| How Ilonggos received news of war  The news of the war (Japanese sneak attack at Pearl Harbor) in the early morning of December 8 (US time, December 7) 1941, caught the West Visayans by surprise. Many teenagers were still sleeping, tired of dancing the Lambert Walk, Conga, Samba, Rumba, Tango or Boogie Woogie the night before at the town fiestas in Oton, Calinog and Concep-cion. Many of them little knew that they would offer their youthful lives for their country the next four years of the war. The West Visayans had anticipated the war since September 1941 when the Philippine Army had been mobilizing the 61st Infantry Division calling all reservists, 20-year-old trainees and ROTC graduates from Colegio de San Agustin, Central Philippine College, Iloilo Normal School and Iloilo Trade School to active duty and training them at Camp Hernandez in Dingle and Camp Monteclaro in Miagao. Our male teachers in high school disappeared one by one because they were called to active duty in the Philippine Army. Once in a while, 30 or 40 American planes made routine passes over the city and province of Iloilo. A few weeks before, three American destroyers arrived at Iloilo Strait embarking thousands of US Navy sailors in Iloilo City for their rest and recreation (R & R). These bolstered the native belief in the superiority of American force over the Japanese. They already had a firm belief in the invulnerability of the American nation to war because of its advanced technology. These could be manifested in the low quality cheap Japanese goods in the market—textile, toys, Japanese bicycles, "Made in Japan" goods are ridiculed by the Ilonggos. With this firm belief, the Ilonggos expected the war to end in a few months - not in a few years which actually happened.
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