October 30, 2009

I stumbled upon this article on Facebook but i was not able to get the URL but copied the whole stuff so I'd like to share this to all who are "disenchanted" with the EDSA revolt. Credit is given to the one that penned this.

Give Me Back My EDSA (this is not meant for the buses)

Today at 12:54am

I was six when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated. Even if I didn't quite understand what was going on, I remember the palpable sadness in my household. My folks gave me a black pin to wear to school.

I turned nine about a month before the EDSA Revolution, and I recall the joy of everyone around me. Before the '86 elections, I envied my classmates who carried yellow Laban pins to school.

Fast forward to EDSA Dos, which ended right on my 24th birthday. Text messages arrived asking us to show up at EDSA Shrine to show our outrage at the Estrada impeachment hearings -- and the middle class came in droves. I showed up as well. I cheered along with everyone else when news broke of Erap rolling out of Malacanang and Davide swearing in GMA.

January 2001 was my chance to take part in a movement that was older than me. It was a movement symbolized by Ninoy and Cory, shrouded in yellow. It was something my parents supported. Like any good son, I wanted to experience the EDSA vibe.

"Yeah," I thought at the time. "This was democracy EDSA-style."

Today I am the same age my mother was during EDSA 1, and I now have a son whose future I am thinking about as I write this.

With the passing of Cory and the arrival of Noynoy, black-rimmed glasses and yellow shirts are popular once more. Columnists like Conrado de Quiros have written that 2010 will mark "an EDSA masquerading as an election".

So why does it feel so wrong?

The more I've read and learned about EDSA 1, the more deeply respectful and awed I've become about the event.

The EDSA spirit to me is entirely about EDSA 1. That was the miracle event and that has become an enduring historical symbol. That was a restoration of democracy that was saluted all over the world. Prior to February 1986, the FIlipino electorate didn't have any choices. We didn't have any information to make those choices. After EDSA, we did.

The big change wasn't the ejection of a corrupt president. The big change was the return of democracy, of free expression, of civil rights.

In contrast, 2001 was entirely about a corrupt president. Sometime during EDSA Dos, it suddenly went from safeguarding the processes of justice to ejecting an elected leader. When the text messages went out, we showed up, and the rest was history. And if you were middle class and up and in Metro Manila, you were probably within a kilometer of Robinson's Galleria -- I saw celebrities, economists, academicians, students -- upstanding citizens all.

And when Erap was run out of office, we saw a repeat of '86 -- the Evil Overlord vanquished and heading for the hills. We patted ourselves on the back, returned to our corporations, universities, and gated communities and said "Mission Accomplished".

We all know how that turned out.

Today, the Yellow Franchise (and yes, like any universally-acknowledged symbol it is a franchise no different from golden arches, Michael Jordan, or the Batman) looks ready to steamroll the competition. I'm sure the opposing candidates are bewildered because they don't have convenient access to a symbol that's as powerful or as deeply-ingrained in the Filipino psyche.

But I'm not going to stand up and allow myself to be used. I don't believe that the miracle of EDSA should be used as a tool for individual political advancement.

I believe that EDSA was about the restoration of democracy (which we have), and that the spirit of EDSA is eternal vigilance against those who would curtail those freedoms we took back in 1986. For a political group to trivialize EDSA for something as petty as winning an election is to spit on everyone who took part in 1986. It's no better than opportunistic businessmen profiting from Cory shirts during her funeral march.

They're all milking a symbol.

And it makes me, who showed up in 2001, feel like a chump who got taken for a ride.

I recall an article saying that before her death, Cory apologized to Erap for her part in EDSA Dos. At the time, I thought -- "how could she apologize to this convicted plunderer?" Now it makes me wonder if she'd caught on to something that I'm only discovering now.

Attention EDSA manglers -- I'd like a piece of the licensing fees for my participation in EDSA Dos (and residuals for my parents in EDSA '86). It's not your franchise to do with as you please.