Lessons we ought to learn from EDSA!

This week, the whole nation commemorates (but not exactly celebrates) 20 years of the EDSA People Power Revolt that ousted the Marcos dictatorship and supposedly ushered in a new beginning and a sense of pride for the Filipino people. Yet 20 years after EDSA, the parades are gone, while the nation continues to suffer from other forms of political problems like a never-ending bureaucracy, political tyranny, military adventurism and an aging communist insurgency that has shifted goals from a godless ideology to one that even wages war against Globe Telecom’s cell sites as if they were legitimate targets of political value. Perhaps the biggest slap to EDSA is that the very people we ousted are back in political power like it was all a sick joke!

If for this week, most of the stories about the 20 years of EDSA are playing second fiddle to the headlines that the mudslide disaster in Bo. Guinsaugon in Saint Bernard, Southern Leyte has brought, perhaps this is God’s way of reminding the Filipino people that we should again help ourselves in order to come up with a better nation. That many Filipinos responded to this natural disaster without being asked reveals the true heart of the Filipino soul… that he cares for those who are in dire need.

When the Filipino people couldn’t stand the excesses of the Marcoses, a united Filipino people threw them out of Malacañang without a shot being fired! Now if only we can once more harnessed this Filipino spirit, we can still turn things around, despite the 20-year waste EDSA has brought our people and our nation.

Surely by now, we have already accepted that we’ve wasted 20 years after the EDSA Revolt. Thus, it is imperative that we must learn our lessons from all those wasted years. Allow me to put a biblical parallel to the plight of the Filipino nation… that we are just like the Israelites whom God released from the bondage of slavery by the Egyptian Pharaoh. Moses led them away to the Red Sea and the people grumbled… that it was better to die in the hands of the Pharaoh than drown in the sea.

Thus, Moses gave his people the greatest miracle ever told… stretching his arms, he divided the Red Sea and allowed his people to cross it on bare ground… then the waters closed upon the pursuing charioteers of the Pharaoh and they drowned. What a great story but that wasn’t the end of it… because after this, the Israelites roamed the desert for 40 years until God allowed them to go to the Promised Land.

Likewise, we, too, were led by God from the bondage of Martial Law, but because we failed to finish the EDSA Revolt and our Red Sea (that’s the PCGG’s failing to jail the Marcoses or their cronies) didn’t close upon the politicians who held us in bondage, we ended up turning around in circles in a political desert.

Hence, history repeated itself in another call for a people power revolt called EDSA Dos, which removed the corrupt Erap (who was one of the minor tentacles of the Marcoses) presidency and replaced it with the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA). Then came the "Hello Garci" scandal and calls for another people power… but the Filipino people no longer responded to them because the promise of EDSA has failed us. If we called for another EDSA, nothing would change unless this time… we had a bloody revolt.

It is for this reason why for more than 15 years now, I was one of the very few who believed in calling for a constitutional convention (con-con) in order to come up with a government that the Filipino people wanted… not what 49 people chosen by Cory Aquino believed that the Filipino people needed! If the 1987 Cory Constitution failed the people, it is because it was a Constitution crafted without consultations with the Filipino people.

Twenty years later, the least we can do is to amend this obviously hastily crafted Cory Constitution and attune it to the needs of the Filipino people. While Congress has rejected the draft Constitution of the Consultative Commission (Con-com), we thank it for that because the Con-com, despite the overwhelming results of surveys, rejected the call for federalism because its governor-members felt that federalism was a threat to their existence. Thanks to the House committee on constitutional amendments chaired by Rep. Constantino G. Jaraula, the attachment for federalism has been restored. That means Cha-cha via a constituent assembly might just give us the government we’ve always wanted to have.

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The great mudslide brought forth by Mt. Kan-abag in Saint Bernard is a reminder to all Filipinos that we should protect our environment at all cost.

As promised, here’s the Tagalog poem written by our good friend, Atty. Apolinario Macalintal, entitled Tinig ng Batang Scout:

Ako’y isang bata
Sa inyo’y humihiling
Ang kahoy sa gubat
Ay huwag ng sirain
Dapat nang hintuan
Ang pagkakaingin
Mga puno sa bondok
Ay huwag nang puputulin
Akin ding kahilingan
Sa kanino pa man
Na ang yamang dagat
Ay pakaingatan
Polusyon at dinamita
Dapat nang hintuan
At ano pa mang pangmagisda
Na makatatampalasan
Sa gubat at dagat
Diyan nanggagaling
Ang maraming bagay
Na ikinabubuhay natin
Kung kami’y mahal ninyo
Hiling ko’y dinggin
Upang buhay natin
Ay hindi magdilim
Sa mga bagay na ito
Ay may alituntunin
Sa lahat ng tao
Ito’y dapat sundin
Kung magkakaganon
Tayo’y uunlad din
Magiging matibay
Ang pag-asa natin.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.