Remembering People Power

Today marks the 39th anniversary of what has come to be known as the EDSA People Power Revolution, an uprising like the world had not seen before. More than a generation has grown up after People Power. Those of us old enough to have been present during those four days in February 1986 remember what happened, although some of the details have become fuzzy with the passing of time.

I remember the apprehension and fear of those first hours when the news broke – of mass arrests, of Ramos and Enrile (who, despite then believing “I will be dead within the hour” not only survived, but lived to celebrate his 101st birthday last Feb. 14) holed up in Camp Aguinaldo, of imminent military action. Past midnight came the call of Cardinal Sin over Radio Veritas – which would be everyone’s lifeline for information over the next days – to “support our two good friends at the camp,” and apologizing, as only a Filipino would at such a time, “I am sorry to disturb you at this late hour, but it is precisely at a time like this that we most need your support for our two good friends.”

All the details of that time in our history is recorded in the People Power book – “The Greatest Democracy Ever Told,” published by the Fr. James Reuter SJ Foundation. I dusted off my copy last week and reread the accounts of those who took part in that exercise of courage – officials, soldiers, priests, housewives (including one who thought she had walked out “from my marriage, so I thought at the time,” having gone against her husband who wanted her to stay at home, saying “you have to think of the children”), office workers, students, business people, vendors – literally, The People.

The photos are just as compelling – the tanks, the nuns, kids on their fathers’ shoulders; a heavily-armed soldier, but smiling, with an Aquino-Laurel visor worn over his bonnet; how young Ramos and Enrile were!

People Power 1986 is generally remembered as some sort of fiesta, with impromptu concerts, with people bringing food and drink (even my most unpolitical mother came with me to make sandwiches in our makeshift neighborhood food kitchen). But those first hours – evening of Feb. 22 into the next day – were fraught with uncertainty and yes, fear. Nobody knew what was going to happen; sightings of approaching tanks and soldiers armed to the teeth spread among the still-thin crowds. Many of those who answered the call to go to EDSA in those hours knew – the thought perhaps pushed to the back of their minds – that being shot at and maybe killed was a very real possibility. They were real heroes, willing to risk their lives for the country.

Only later, when the crowds swelled to millions and the tanks were stopped by nuns on their knees and the fighter helicopters landed in Camp Crame, did the fear turn into festivity.

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There are some who say that the reason real and significant change did not take root in our society after 1986 is because no blood was shed – hindi dumanak ang dugo – unlike revolutions elsewhere in the world. Is that what it takes to change a system, a society? Ninoy Aquino’s blood was spilled, on the tarmac of the airport that now bears his name (and which, thankfully, is finally being rehabilitated). His brutal death triggered, two and a half years later, People Power. Was it a revolution? A coup? A popular uprising? A fiesta? It’s all of the above – and then some.

A blurb from the book quotes Richard Reeves of the Associated Press, writing about Cory Aquino: “‘Her story is at once the most surprising succession of miracles and the most reasonable succession of political actions,’ wrote a Frenchman. That was a long time ago – Andre Maurois writing of the triumph of Joan of Arc in his ‘History of France.’

“There are the seeds of human greatness in the stories of the two innocent women who, five centuries apart, rallied people through their own faith to rise against tyranny. It is a story that can never be told too often and, no matter how it ends this time, is a lesson in the dynamics and wonder of democratic political leadership.”

Is the lack of violence and bloodshed why, almost four decades later, we find ourselves facing the same problems of corruption and poverty, and maybe even worse, as now we can’t even feed our people and educate our children. Do we really need a bloody revolution, a war where guns are fired and bodies litter the streets? In recent history we had a bloody anti-drug “war” that saw bodies – thousands of bodies – literally littered on the streets; did it bring about change for the better, did it uplift us?

Killing people – whether it is a joke or hyperbole or pre-dawn ranting or a serious threat – cannot be the solution to our problems.

The People Power book ends with an epilogue – “The Wisdom of Nonviolence” – by Fr. Jose Blanco SJ. Part of it reads:

“The world’s problems are best solved if we respect the humanity, the dignity of every human person concerned. The desire to be violent or to use violence can be tamed and diminished, if we show love, care, joy to those who are unjust and wish to be violent. Violence addresses the aggressor. Nonviolence searches out and addresses the humanity in the enemy or oppressor…

“Let us show that we can gain liberation in a nonviolent way. Let us show that we can construct a world without guns and without arms.”

It is not an easy task, for a nation and even for our individual selves. But the instinct to strike out, to simply eliminate the obstacle or the enemy, must be tamed. That is the higher calling of being human.