Continue EDSA fight - Guingona

Keep the spirit alive.

Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona said this yesterday as he urged Filipinos to keep the spirit of people power alive not only during the annual celebration of the bloodless EDSA revolt this month but every day of their life.

In his weekly radio program, Guingona said the EDSA revolt culminated only on Feb. 25, 1986 but began 14 years before when dictator Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law.

He said martial law had distorted the values of the Filipinos and those values were corrected by the bloodless revolution.

"The spirit of EDSA should be kept alive in our daily lives," he said. "EDSA renewed our values... It gave us the courage to be honest again and to be one."

Guingona lamented that although martial law had long been lifted, still many Filipinos espouse the wrong values it promoted.

"Now, instead of honesty is the best policy, it's making money is the best policy," he said.

He noted that even military values and traditions were distorted by martial rule because a lot of officers in the Armed Forces were promoted despite a lack of qualification.

He said the culture of "whom you know and not what you know" still prevails at this time.

The senator bewailed too that the influence of martial law's "dark days" is evident in the judiciary where judges' decisions are usually swayed by outside influence.

"Cases are decided not on the merits but on who called the judge," he said.