It felt like I had the best seat in a full house. I was in a good place in a good month—my birthday month—at a good time during Edsa. I had just turned 46 and lived close enough to the site of the action to walk the distance—the only way to do it, actually; yet I was out enough of harm’s way in case our worst fears came true.
Meanwhile, my only daughter, my eldest, was herself safe across the ocean in Boston for her Masters in Psychology and Education; except for my youngest, who lived outside the city with their father, the rest of my children, two older boys, were with me.
I remember what it felt like to be with cousins and friends, old and newfound ones, sitting on that historic stretch of pavement in an atmosphere that brought together the best elements of brotherhood and prayerfulness—and a picnic.
But if there had been a prize for the most generous giver of the day—of any day—it would have easily gone to the pan de sal man, who would appear suddenly in the early dawn on his bicycle ecstatically distributing his bounty, hot and fresh, to the crowd. We certainly had a time of it, well, except for the Marcoses and their cronies, I imagine.
Moments of terror
But just as real were those moments of terror when the rumbling and clanking of tanks were heard coming toward us, in fact, materializing before us in time. But then again, suddenly, it was all over and we were free!
For some time after the experience, whenever I passed or found myself on the same stretch of road, between the armed forces and national police camps, I couldn’t help reliving those moments, moments that brought one an intoxicating mix of feelings—pride, fear, invincibility. I imagine that, under critical test, that’s what love of country might feel like for a people of deep faith and child-like trust in prayer. Every time that thought comes I still find myself shaking my head in disbelief that I actually was once on a piece of ground I had never crossed on foot ever before—that I was there when it mattered, if only to me.
As it all happened, somewhere in a corner of a mother’s heart I worried about my oldest son Rob, 23 then. I had not seen or heard from him when I should especially have—his own birthday falls on the 25th. A cup reporter for the daily Manila Times, he had been on the team that had gone out on the story. Cell phones yet unheard of, all I had was a mother’s intuition and hope that a responsible boy like him would be okay.
As it turned out, Rob was getting his own share of excitement and thrills, firsthand. He couldn’t imagine his luck—though at the time it might have looked like his potential doom. He had been trapped with Secretary of Defense Enrile and sidelined Gen. Fidel Ramos in Crame, the constabulary camp. He was there when the unexpectedly friendly helicopter of Willy Sotelo landed. He recalls observing Enrile sweating buckets through his double-layered bullet-proof vest and, in contrast, General Ramos, looking cool in T-shirt and running shorts sneaking outside the camp for an early-morning jog. And to top that, Rob was among those who barged into Malacañang after the Marcoses had fled.
Awe and admiration
Indeed, at around the time, it felt good to be a Filipino here or anywhere else, particularly in Boston. Again, as luck would have it, shortly after the triumph of the Edsa revolt, I found myself there for my daughter’s graduation at Boston University. Americans, as well as other nationalities, looked at Filipinos in awe and admiration, and I was only too glad to have brought as much Edsa souvenirs and paraphernalia to give away as pasalubong to fellow Filipinos.
Alas, we Filipinos have short memories, which could well be the downside of our resiliency. Many were complaining about the traffic jams caused by the Edsa commemoration this week—a mere one day to relive the most lustrous moment in our contemporary history.
Perhaps aiding our propensity to forget are the confusing accounts of Edsa and events around it in memoirs and commissioned biographies, which in our own peculiar case are written with self-interests not necessarily in conflict with one another, since the victors and vanquished not only at Edsa but in our entire history in time somehow find themselves in convenient interlocking agendas. That’s why I take it as my serious responsibility to remember and keep the facts of the phenomenon in my heart, where nobody can take it away from me.
I’m, indeed, saddened to see the commemoration become more and more downplayed, worse, taken over by the wrong guys. There may be bigger and more urgent issues facing us now, issues that might make the Edsa campaign to overthrow a dictator and regain our freedom seem in ungrateful hindsight a piece of cake.
I don’t intend to get stuck on Edsa myself, but neither do I want to belittle it. Coming together as a nation, praying as one and sharing resources so selflessly, and kicking out a dictator without spilling a drop of blood, is nothing short of a miracle. And even if we seem desperate for another one at this time for even bigger problems, it doesn’t mean we should reduce the greatness of that moment in our history.
I’ve been witness to a miracle, witness to the transformation of a people. And, by God, it felt great to be a part of it. And if it happened once, how can it not happen again?