No forgetting
No forgetting
Posted 01:01am (Mla time) Feb 25, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the February 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANY Filipinos, I bet, will celebrate this day as just the start of a three-day weekend. Indeed, as Bill Luz, who sits with me on the Edsa People Power Commission, pointed out in a recent meeting, more than half of the present Philippine population has no memories at all of the event we're celebrating today.
Born 19 years ago or thereabouts, these young Filipinos would have heard of Edsa only from their parents and older friends and relatives, or from their teachers and the media. And whatever impressions they would have gathered-positive or negative-about the first People Power Revolt would have been filtered through other people's memories, perceptions and biases. And even then the event would be for them simply something that took place a long time ago.
Take my own children. My son, who was 6 at the time, remembers those days as mainly a period of his life when he was home alone most of the time "with no one but the ‘yayas’ [nannies] for company." His father was not just keeping vigil on Edsa then but also in the hospital, since I gave birth to our daughter on Feb. 26.
My daughter, my Edsa baby, likes listening to stories about the events surrounding her birth. But were it not for Edsa Dos and the chance it gave her and her brother to experience people power first-hand, the story of those three days would have remained charming fairy-tales to her.
* * *
AS it is, I'm hard put dredging memories, not to mention passion and fervor, from the first Edsa uprising. While the event holds a lot of personal meaning, it's also difficult not to feel a twinge of disappointment and betrayal. I'm almost embarrassed when my children ask me to recall yet one more time the story of Edsa. From this remove, our collective hopes and dreams, the elaborate visions of a new Philippines we had woven from our years of street protests and earnest campaigning for Cory seem the height of naiveté.
So can we blame students, young professionals, young workers and “jologs” [common folk] for turning away today, indifferent to the spirit of celebration we are still trying to wring from the Edsa commemoration? Despite all I've said previously, my answer still is: We can't blame them, but we can and should try to draw them still into celebrating Edsa.
Though subsequent developments failed to measure up to the elaborate myths we had concocted from our fading hopes, those three days on Edsa (and everywhere else Filipinos poured out into the streets in outrage at the stolen elections) were and are a proud moment for Filipinos. We shortchange the next generation when we denigrate and belittle our achievement, for it is their achievement, too. It was they, after all, who inspired our reckless courage on the highway. And it is they who will carry forward whatever little remains of the "promise" of Edsa.
* * *
EVEN today, there are people who seek to rewrite the story of what took place 19 years ago. Imelda Marcos, exulting in the ruling of a US superior court overruling a Hawaii judge's award of damages to Filipino human rights victims, misinterprets the ruling and takes it as a "vindication" of her and her late husband's conjugal dictatorship.
All that the US court said is that the Philippine justice system, and not any foreign judge, should be the one to decide whether victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship should receive compensation from the government. It said nothing that could even be remotely construed as absolution of the Marcoses' many sins. The claimants have offered proof of the torture they personally suffered, or of the killings and disappearances of their loved ones perpetrated by the Marcos military. And nothing in the ruling prevents the Arroyo government (or whoever will be president in the future) from going after the Marcos assets to fund the compensation the victims seek.
The "RAM Boys" are reported to be preparing their own book about their failed coup attempt, doubtless carrying their own version of the events. I have yet to read the book, but I can guess at its contents, as it will undoubtedly echo many of the statements that their patron, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, and their putative leader, Sen. Gringo Honasan, have already uttered in previous Edsa commemorations.
From their point of view, it was only they who staked their lives when they holed up in Camp Aguinaldo. It was only they who defied the dictator, even if, up until a few days before, they were basking in the power and privileges that proximity to the dictator allowed them. And let's not forget that Enrile himself admitted that he helped cheat Cory in Cagayan.
* * *
BUT if Imelda and the RAM Boys and their sponsors have developed amnesia and denial about the "real" story of Edsa, there are still many of us who haven't. And it is up to us, who still remember, to ensure that the truth of those events is told to the Filipinos who have no memories of Edsa. Even if, painful as it may be, we may end up conceding that the future could not but collapse from the weight of our grandiose dreams.
Next year, we mark the 20th anniversary of Edsa. While we seek ways to bring the commemoration forward and make the rituals more relevant to the problems we face today, we also need to protect and preserve the memories of the past. Even now, the Edsa People Power Commission is calling on everyone who has memorabilia dating back not just to Edsa but also to the post-Ninoy assassination protests and the snap elections, to turn over these items for archiving and possible display in a mobile exhibit planned for next year's commemoration.
If half of the population has no memories at all of Edsa, then it's up to the other half to make sure that the true story of our proudest moment is preserved and not forgotten.
Posted 01:01am (Mla time) Feb 25, 2005
By Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A15 of the February 25, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
MANY Filipinos, I bet, will celebrate this day as just the start of a three-day weekend. Indeed, as Bill Luz, who sits with me on the Edsa People Power Commission, pointed out in a recent meeting, more than half of the present Philippine population has no memories at all of the event we're celebrating today.
Born 19 years ago or thereabouts, these young Filipinos would have heard of Edsa only from their parents and older friends and relatives, or from their teachers and the media. And whatever impressions they would have gathered-positive or negative-about the first People Power Revolt would have been filtered through other people's memories, perceptions and biases. And even then the event would be for them simply something that took place a long time ago.
Take my own children. My son, who was 6 at the time, remembers those days as mainly a period of his life when he was home alone most of the time "with no one but the ‘yayas’ [nannies] for company." His father was not just keeping vigil on Edsa then but also in the hospital, since I gave birth to our daughter on Feb. 26.
My daughter, my Edsa baby, likes listening to stories about the events surrounding her birth. But were it not for Edsa Dos and the chance it gave her and her brother to experience people power first-hand, the story of those three days would have remained charming fairy-tales to her.
* * *
AS it is, I'm hard put dredging memories, not to mention passion and fervor, from the first Edsa uprising. While the event holds a lot of personal meaning, it's also difficult not to feel a twinge of disappointment and betrayal. I'm almost embarrassed when my children ask me to recall yet one more time the story of Edsa. From this remove, our collective hopes and dreams, the elaborate visions of a new Philippines we had woven from our years of street protests and earnest campaigning for Cory seem the height of naiveté.
So can we blame students, young professionals, young workers and “jologs” [common folk] for turning away today, indifferent to the spirit of celebration we are still trying to wring from the Edsa commemoration? Despite all I've said previously, my answer still is: We can't blame them, but we can and should try to draw them still into celebrating Edsa.
Though subsequent developments failed to measure up to the elaborate myths we had concocted from our fading hopes, those three days on Edsa (and everywhere else Filipinos poured out into the streets in outrage at the stolen elections) were and are a proud moment for Filipinos. We shortchange the next generation when we denigrate and belittle our achievement, for it is their achievement, too. It was they, after all, who inspired our reckless courage on the highway. And it is they who will carry forward whatever little remains of the "promise" of Edsa.
* * *
EVEN today, there are people who seek to rewrite the story of what took place 19 years ago. Imelda Marcos, exulting in the ruling of a US superior court overruling a Hawaii judge's award of damages to Filipino human rights victims, misinterprets the ruling and takes it as a "vindication" of her and her late husband's conjugal dictatorship.
All that the US court said is that the Philippine justice system, and not any foreign judge, should be the one to decide whether victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship should receive compensation from the government. It said nothing that could even be remotely construed as absolution of the Marcoses' many sins. The claimants have offered proof of the torture they personally suffered, or of the killings and disappearances of their loved ones perpetrated by the Marcos military. And nothing in the ruling prevents the Arroyo government (or whoever will be president in the future) from going after the Marcos assets to fund the compensation the victims seek.
The "RAM Boys" are reported to be preparing their own book about their failed coup attempt, doubtless carrying their own version of the events. I have yet to read the book, but I can guess at its contents, as it will undoubtedly echo many of the statements that their patron, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, and their putative leader, Sen. Gringo Honasan, have already uttered in previous Edsa commemorations.
From their point of view, it was only they who staked their lives when they holed up in Camp Aguinaldo. It was only they who defied the dictator, even if, up until a few days before, they were basking in the power and privileges that proximity to the dictator allowed them. And let's not forget that Enrile himself admitted that he helped cheat Cory in Cagayan.
* * *
BUT if Imelda and the RAM Boys and their sponsors have developed amnesia and denial about the "real" story of Edsa, there are still many of us who haven't. And it is up to us, who still remember, to ensure that the truth of those events is told to the Filipinos who have no memories of Edsa. Even if, painful as it may be, we may end up conceding that the future could not but collapse from the weight of our grandiose dreams.
Next year, we mark the 20th anniversary of Edsa. While we seek ways to bring the commemoration forward and make the rituals more relevant to the problems we face today, we also need to protect and preserve the memories of the past. Even now, the Edsa People Power Commission is calling on everyone who has memorabilia dating back not just to Edsa but also to the post-Ninoy assassination protests and the snap elections, to turn over these items for archiving and possible display in a mobile exhibit planned for next year's commemoration.
If half of the population has no memories at all of Edsa, then it's up to the other half to make sure that the true story of our proudest moment is preserved and not forgotten.
posted by Dante at 7:14 PM
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