Faded

The thought struck me rather rudely last Tuesday as I sat in a committee reviewing applications for teaching positions at the University. The two applications we had for teaching assistantships were from two fairly mature scholars born after the dramatic events of February 1986.

That’s it, I thought, we are now officially one generation away from the Edsa Revolution. Before we know it, the majority of Filipinos now living shall have been born after what many of my generation would like to imagine was turning of the historical tide.

How many Filipinos could, as I do today, recall what one was doing during virtually every hour through those four sleepless days from February 22 to 25, 1986? How many could recount the dramatic swings from optimism to a crushing sense of defeat to a surging feeling of triumph all in a day?

The swings from reckless courage to encompassing fear, as we stood on barricades peering into the dark amidst rumors of tanks coming to crush us. We were almost literally sniffing at the air to get an inkling of how the tide of battle was turning, grasping at every rumor that was passed quickly through a large crowd like electricity passes through a pile of highly conductive material.

The passions that moved us, the hopes that we kindled so protectively and the visions that animated us so that we became braver than we ever thought we could be — all of these will inevitably fade. First, they will wear on the edges as the lines of partisanship begin to obscure. Then the emotions of a particular period, shared by contemporaries of that time, will begin to be dulled by the disappointments that follow every magical moment. Eventually, the event itself, its meanings and its messages, will become a bit alien to those born after the event.

I recall, when I was in the second grade, one of our teachers, when memory suddenly possesses her, would go into a wild rant about the Japanese Imperial Army. We never really understood her rage, although today I am sure her seemingly boundless anger had just roots.

I recall most vividly what she told us about those cruel foreigners: they ate fish raw. The whole class shuddered whenever she mentioned that and I had nightmares about these ogres coming back and swallowing my pet goldfish alive. Many years later, I would discover the pleasures of sashimi, falling thoroughly in love with the textures and the high art of culinary presentation that goes with it.

As generations flow from one to the next, the passions that possessed the first one will fail to impress the next. Not that those passions were unfounded: but they are soon pretty well removed from the life-world of the next generation.

It is understandable that public enthusiasm for commemorating the 1986 Edsa Revolution has been steadily on the decline. In the murky aftermath of that uprising, the camps of political opinion have constantly redrawn the lines that set them apart. The heroes have shown their imperfections.

Increasingly, the event has ceased to be understood as that bright house on the hill. It is increasingly understood as simply another milestone in the long and winding journey of this national community: a journey of discovery and disappointment, redefinition and reinvention.

That poor facsimile of the Edsa Revolution, what we simply call Edsa Dos, is no longer officially commemorated. There is a sense that doing so will only serve to keep the wounds fresh.

February 25, too, has been taken out of the list of non-working holidays. Which is good: we have among the most numerous public holidays in the world, including many Christian and Muslim holy days, those commemorating the battles we lost and one where we remember our dead. We cannot expect our economy to be competitive if we keep adding more holidays to the calendar.

I suppose that it is only a matter of time when we stop commemorating the Edsa Revolution altogether. The need to remind the people about rejecting tyranny is increasingly diminished by the sheer obsolescence of tyrannical rule in the age of ungovernable channels of communication.

Among the several unremunerated jobs I hold is that of commissioner at the Edsa People Power Commission (EPPC). The Commission’s reason for being, apart from the now nearly routine preparations for the commemoration of the event, is to propagate the values of good democratic citizenship.

That is, to be sure, and important assignment if we see democracy-building as a continuing task. But it is one that, over time, ought to be embedded in the regular functioning of our educational and governance institutions. Which is why, I have always thought, the EPPC’s success in its work is measured by the extent to which it makes itself irrelevant.

Every year, as I help supervise the events at the Edsa People Power Monument, I could not help noticing the crowd thinning and the “veterans” getting older. Every year, we rely less on waving yellow banners and more on bringing in live bands to attract the young.

The diminishing interest does not take anything away from the validity of the historic event. We cannot hold on to its images for too long as the means to communicate a continuing message. There was limits to the efficacy of using a previous event to chart a way to the future.

I recall, as a university student, we coined the phrase “martial law baby” to describe those who entered college after the dictatorship was imposed. In a few short years, the phrase was used to describe those literally born after martial law was declared. And a few short years later, the phrase lost all its meaning entirely.

As the generations flow, what seemed to be an earthshaking event to the older ones becomes merely an item of curiosity to the young.