It’s worth retelling and retelling
Those who were at EDSA 36 years ago, from Saturday, Feb. 22 to Feb. 25, 1986, and the immediate events leading to the People Power uprising must still have vivid memories of history unfolding before their eyes.
Ferdinand Marcos had called for a presidential snap election one December morning (in Manila) in 1985 before an astonished American media during a press conference. American, in fact, western, media had been traditionally rough on him and other dictators.
They did not expect Marcos to risk his presidency by calling for an election in the middle of widespread protests triggered by the execution of exiled opposition leader and Marcos’ main rival, Ninoy Aquino. The inescapable conclusion was that US President Ronald Reagan had “convinced” Marcos to get a new mandate. For Americans, holding elections in the face of a serious political crisis in leadership and doubts about the acceptability of the incumbent is their standard formula.
President Reagan and his first lady, Nancy, were friends of the Marcoses dating back to 1966 when both men assumed their respective positions as president (Marcos) and governor of California (Reagan). One interesting highlight of this friendship was that the Reagans were the high-profile guests of the Marcoses during the inauguration of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in 1967. It was Imelda’s first step in owning the title “patroness of the arts.” The Film Center and the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) followed in rapid succession.
Marcos announced that the elections would be held on Feb. 7, 1986. The campaign period started shortly with Marcos running under the monolithic Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) while Ninoy’s widow, Corazon or Cory, ran under the coalition United Nationalist Independent and Democratic Opposition or UNIDO.
The campaigns of both sides got off to rousing starts, with the KBL using massive government resources and the Local Government infrastructure to overwhelm the Opposition. The latter, however, leaned on dissatisfaction with Marcos’s human rights record, widespread poverty, economic mismanagement, and the flawed character of the regime that depended on brutal force to remain in power. In contrast, the campaign of Corazon Aquino evolved into a people’s campaign with volunteers from all walks of life casting their lot with the opposition that was, for most of the people, the last hope for change. Corazon Aquino campaigned from the perspective of moral ascendancy and restoring trust in government. She sought to offer a contrast between herself and Marcos. She would say. “I’m everything Marcos is not,” which prompted an angry response from the grizzled political veteran supposedly used to political campaign rhetoric and needling.
But the campaign went way beyond needling and resulted in mayhem: I was at the Cory Aquino Media Bureau and daily we monitored opposition campaign casualties, injuries, and disappearances. We kept a running total of those confirmed killed or injured, abductions, etc. We did not keep tabs anymore of opposition rallies and motorcades being harassed, broken up, and denied permits — they were too many to be kept in our floppy disks which were then used in the mid-1980s. There were instances of uncommon brutality and savagery: a pastor campaigning for Corazon Aquino was murdered and strung up a tree in Quirino province; an opposition partisan in Tarlac was murdered and beside his corpse were his thumb and forefinger in the “L” gesture for “Laban” cut off from the rest of his hand, for everyone to see. Indeed, a chilling reminder for those who went against Marcos. A few days after the EDSA uprising, President Aquino instructed me to turn over my files to newly appointed chairman of the Presidential Commission on Human Rights, former senator Ka Pepe Diokno.
On election day, the Media Bureau was inundated, like all other offices allied with the opposition, by reports of violence and fraud. Who could forget Elizalde Diaz from Bicol rushing into our office pursued by goons all the way from the Maharlika or Pan-Philippine highway to Manila? A few moments later, men in bloodied clothes and bandaged heads sought shelter and assistance from the Media Bureau. All in all, the day had become a gloomy one for the opposition as reports of intimidation, voter denial, and voter suppression instigated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec), then led by the troika of Chairman Victorino Savellano, Vicente Santiago, and Jaime Opinion, clogged the bureau’s reporting system which was not equipped for such. Public disgust with the Comelec was expressed in a variety of ways, including the throwing of human excreta in Opinion’s house in Quezon City.
The elections were held with international observers and media, led by the then six-year-old CNN, chronicling the cheating, the intimidation. Seen on American prime time TV were ordinary Filipinos protecting ballot boxes from being snatched by armed Marcos goons in opposition strongholds. International media showed Comelec tabulators walking out of the main hall of the PICC when they noticed that trends were being manipulated by Comelec officials to favor Marcos. The courageous ladies sought protection with the Redemptorist Fathers in nearby Baclaran church where they were interviewed and they revealed the organized cheating taking place.
Observers sent by Reagan, mostly belonging to his own Republican party, confirmed the massive fraud, cheating, and election violence that could very well defeat the purpose for which he arm-twisted Marcos to call the elections. Reagan would later go on television to report to the American people that — as a concession to Marcos and on the advice of Paul Manafort (as early at that time, already serving as a lobbyist for Marcos) — “cheating occurred on both sides,” to the shock and dismay of Filipinos. To this date, Manafort, who had been sentenced to prison for various offenses during the administration of his fellow Republican and patron, the equally unethical Donald Trump, is remembered for his shady deals including getting a Russian puppet elected president of Ukraine. What a group — Manafort, Trump, Marcos, and Reagan!
As expected, Comelec declared Marcos the winner by about 1.5 million votes while election monitor Namfrel (National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections) announced from its main tallying center, La Salle Green Hills, that Corazon Aquino won by a little over half a million votes. The Comelec announcement precipitated the proclamation by the KBL-dominated parliament of Marcos as president. On Feb. 20, Corazon Aquino led more than a million people in a prayer rally at Luneta Park and promptly declared a boycott of Marcos crony-owned businesses, just short of calling for civil disobedience a la Mahatma Gandhi.
On the other hand, the military had started to implement its own plans for a rebellion, riding on the massive dissatisfaction and the rampant election cheating that even Marcos’s own defense minister, Juan Ponce Enrile, denounced. With Jaime Cardinal Sin and a big sector of the Catholic Church hierarchy, and substantial portions of the military led by General Fidel V. Ramos expressing support for Corazon Aquino, Reagan, through Republican Senators Paul Laxalt and Richard Lugar, advised Marcos to “cut and cut clean” and leave the Philippines. Reagan did not see it fit to talk to Marcos, who said he was “so very disappointed” that his old friend could be of no help to him during this moment of great need.
Marcos fled to Guam and then to Hawaii, bringing with him tons of cash, jewelry, securities, and documents that helped put together a paper trail leading to Marcos’ ill-gotten billions of dollars.
There are many more highlights of the EDSA People Power uprising worth telling. Each person who participated in the uprising, especially those who had opposed Marcos as early as 1969 when he won an unprecedented reelection, has fascinating and breathtaking stories to tell. And they should be told over and over again to counter the massive and well-funded historical falsification.
Certainly, the EDSA uprising and the struggle against untruths are worth retelling.
Philip Ella Juico’s areas of interest include the protection and promotion of democracy, free markets, sustainable development, social responsibility and sports as a tool for social development. He obtained his doctorate in business at De La Salle University. Dr. Juico served as secretary of Agrarian Reform during the Corazon C. Aquino administration.
