EDSA dose

Sometime this week two years ago, E-Male concluded his team up with Ka Popoy Lagman, the late legendary icon for revolutionary action, in a roadshow revved up 14 weeks before that snaked its way from Mendiola to Ayala Avenue to EDSA — and vice-versa — in what is now remembered by history as EDSA Dos or People Power II. In a bit of nostalgia, E-Male recounts how it all started when a whistleblower and presidential pal coughed up a confession about his confrere’s incorrigible involvement in corrupt activities.

At first, E-Male balked at meeting head-on the macho and mustached matinee idol of the masses since he himself dreamt of someday inheriting the title from the then Main Man at Malacañang — but minus the bigote and the bulges of bilbil.

After all, there was enough room for self-proclaimed messiahs for machismo to live in harmony by staying clear off each other’s sights, convinced that the town was indeed big enough for most of us similarly situated, unless of course, our kind and kindred were all crowding one another in a jail cell crawling with mean-looking rascals and rogues, in which case, a murderous melee could take place at a mere drunken leer.

And besides, the scorching issues of the day drummed up against the president were mostly punchlines, Eraptions and character perversions that most Filipinos themselves were still in desperate search of a cure for such flaky flaws like boozing, betting, brawling and babe-preying. Morality and machismo were a confusing mix in politics and so they were for the amoral majority whose concern for the national interest rivaled that of Beavis and Butthead.

Although the entire nation was riveted to events and scandals that unfolded by each passing day, most were unmoved by the perennial charges and counter-charges of graft and corruption in high places. Unscrupulousness in public service had become a virtue at that time and even up to this day as well as a nagging norm in the conduct of government. Kettles don’t call the pot black especially if most Filipinos stretch out their coffee mugs and soup bowls for a drip and drop from the same hot pot.

Prior to the fateful voting on the opening of the famous envelope in the Senate, the flowers and the flags that bloomed and fluttered in full majesty in February 1986 were nowhere to be seen. The advocates and potentates of righteous outrage had hibernated in the shut-in comfort of their airconditioned offices or in the tranquil environment of their homes. Former confetti revolutionaries were either dead, dying or decaying in the midst of their chosen careers; or were preoccupied with the drudgeries of work overseas.

Activism was passe and considered a likely route only for troublesome school dropouts who were too smart or too proud to be satisfied with a McJob or be conscripted as a microserf of a corporate conglomerate. Though a faint anachronism of the progenitors of the days of disquiet and nights of rage who exploded in splendid defiance three decades ago, tired street parliamentarians found new strength and zeal in blazing a new trail across the political landscape to provide a direction, any direction, for a growing number of young people who were beginning to realize that patriotism and protest still have a place in their lives.

Young social reformers Wilson Fortaleza of Sanlakas, Victor Briz of Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Erwin Puhawan and Michelle Licudin of KAMPI, Teddy Casiño of BAYAN and column colleague China Cojuangco of the Estrada Resign Movement led the charge of the young brigade in shattering the normalcy of abuse in government even as E-Male marshaled mallrats in springing mall attacks in Glorietta, Ayala Center in Cebu and SM Megamall in order to shatter the bubble of normalcy to the chagrin of caught-off-guard security guards and to the entertaining enlightenment and education of the clueless populace. This, while E-Male’s storm-troopers stormed the Bahay Boracay and proclaimed it a shrine for the homeless.

All these are, by now, mere footnotes to the struggles and sacrifices of a people who have made and unmade history in a stretch of highway — one that has become an avenue for social action and change, an altar where democracy is born and baptized, a boulevard of broken dreams that still promises to regain what was lost, to remember what was forgotten and to fight for what was taken as long we remain true to our faith that the road to democracy is never an easy ride even if EDSA Dos, for most part, was a joy ride for the young.

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E-mail E-Male at: argee@justice.com.