Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. — George Santayana
Last Friday we celebrated the culmination of People Power when the Dictator and his family were ousted from Malacañang, and exiled to Hawaii. That was 36 years ago.
The EDSA Revolution, of two million Filipinos in Metro Manila, was the Philippines’ gift to the world. We were the toast of the world’s democracies, and we proudly wore the badge of the freedom loving Filipino. For awhile, at least.
Our bloodless revolution provided inspiration for Nelson Mandela’s South Africa, which abolished apartheid on April 27, 1994.
EDSA also spurred the Polish people who elected Lech Walesa on Dec. 9, 1990 as their President in the country’s first free elections.
To be sure, South Africa’s and Poland ‘s paths to freedom were different from ours, but the Philippine example, that it could be done, provided great impetus to their efforts and determination to overcome oppressive systems or regimes.
The luster of EDSA’s glory has since faded. A whole generation has grown into adulthood without fully appreciating what the textbooks teach about Martial Law and EDSA.
The leaders who came after EDSA, including Cory Aquino, the Revolutionary President, failed to capitalize on pursuing systemic changes in our traditionally-corrupt, dynastic, and patron-centered politics. The failure to transform our democracy into a pro-people, participative politics has resulted into more of the same Marcos clones, sans Martial Law.
Hence, the great disappointment. And this disappointment runs through educated idealists who marched at EDSA, the youth who had no historical context of EDSA and are susceptible to the historical revisionism promoted by BBM and his paid trolls, and the masses trapped in poverty and seeing no dramatic change in their circumstances.
EDSA at 36 can be likened to the children’s rhyme: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall! All the king’s horses and all the king’s men/Couldn’t put Humpty together again!
The disappointment from EDSA seems reflected in national surveys which show that our people, especially those in the post-Martial Law generation, seem to prefer the return of a Marcos to Malacañang.
This is the Wall which Leni Robredo, Ping, Manny and Ka Leody (and others opposed to Martial Law and the bitter memories which survive 36 years later) must breach to make the Spirit of EDSA come alive again!
To breach the Wall, the aspirant’s messaging must discard the traditional “I promise” platforms from year after year. To overcome the Wall of apathy and cynicism, from a generation’s heartache and disappointment, the new message must be to transform the people, and sincerely pursue transformed politics. No dynasty, no corruption, no patronage. And the message must not be a mere promise. It must explain to the people how.
BBM promises unity, but he doesn’t explain how he will do it. He promises unity and yet, he refuses to confront the very cause of our people’s division today.
Martial Law separates our people: those who remember and those who deny it — whether from disappointment or from ignorance. That is why unity is a superficial promise. It cannot be realized.
The more realistic promise that Leni Robredo and others can make to reach our people’s hearts is to work towards our whole transformation as a people. A transformation without self-interest, without reservation, an unqualified transformation of the whole.
This can only be communicated through a disavowal of perceived interest groups. To insist on the superiority of the yellow tag vis-a-vis Marcos loyalists or Dutertards makes the messaging of Leni Robredo’s followers fall into the fallacy of the “unity” trap.
Inclusiveness wins followers. Conceit drives people away.
Transformation should speak to the heart of the tsinelas crowd, not just to the middle or upper class, which is Leni Robredo’s base.
If Jesse Robredo walked around in tsinelas and identified with this class, Leni Robredo, Ping, Manny and Ka Leody can, too!
To ignore the Anti-EDSA Wall is to deny the existence of its generation of unbelievers. To recognize the challenge of the Wall gives hope that we, the people, may be able to put the Philippine Humpty Dumpty together again!
“Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.” — Jeremiah 18:3
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