Another Edsa

Thirty years have passed since the metro’s main thoroughfare became the center of an uprising that toppled a dictator and secured for the nation the freedom long sought and fought for. The events of those fateful days are sufficient to evoke sentimentality in a profoundly emotional people. A child celebrating his birthday amid throngs on Edsa, tycoons and beggars in kapit-bisig, ice cream given freely, flowers offered to gun-toting soldiers, people stopping tanks with emblems of faith and a resolve to die for the country… These are just some of the many images of people power.

But after three decades, these images have lost their luster. The color yellow and the “Laban” sign are now mere symbols of a family and political party, rather than of the collective struggle. The ideals that Filipinos upheld in those days are now taken for granted, even despised. It seems that even the most emotional cannot be thrilled for long by this narrative which Nick Joaquin described as the “most Christian” of our days. Now it’s the notoriety of the highway for its traffic that is remembered, more than the great moment it hosted, the culmination of the quest for freedom and democracy. Today’s Edsa is a fitting metaphor for our nation: always caught in heavy traffic and slowly moving forward.

Many of those who did not experience the dark days of the Marcos regime are quick to subscribe to the idea that those were the days of disciplined citizenry and economic progress. We cannot blame our contemporaries because the problems that people resolved to end early in 1986 are still the problems that haunt us today: poverty, systemic corruption, political dynasties, patronage politics, impunity, etc.

Our generation has passed judgment that Edsa I was a failure, a great mistake. But I am one of those who say it is not. The failure, the great mistake, was to end people power on Feb. 25, 1986, upon the removal of the Marcoses from Malacañang. People were wrong in thinking that the problems would end with a family when in fact these are deeply rooted in our society. After four days and months of exuberance came the resurgence of a culture Filipinos wanted to end—from the killing of protesting farmers on Mendiola to the massacre of journalists and other civilians in Maguindanao, and the many other things that happened in between. There is much work to be done to achieve genuine and lasting change. Those who have gone before us did their part. All Filipinos, especially young people, share the task of continuing it.

Should we go once again to Edsa in a massive gathering of change-seekers? I think not, for I believe that one display of people power in the streets is enough. Filipinos should continue to fight for freedom and change, no longer in the streets, but through the fulfillment of our respective roles toward true democracy and prosperity.

We still need people power. But we no longer need throngs of people in the streets calling for a president’s ouster or for significant reforms, only a generation banking on its resolve to empower all Filipinos. We need another united movement that will build a just and humane society that provides equal opportunities, basic services, and decent shelter to all families, food on every table, quality education accessible to all, genuine agrarian reform, respect for human rights, and every other good thing, most specially the blessings of freedom and democracy that had been secured for us and the next generations. This new movement is not centered on personalities, but on what is best for every Filipino. This means living our lives in honesty, integrity, and in a constant spirit of service to others. This idealism is not alien to us; Filipinos showed it during Edsa I.

People power embodies the good in Filipinos—the good that makes them worth dying for. We must celebrate, not 30 years after people power, but 30 years of empowerment. “Not one hero I ask, but many,” Marcos said in 1965. The many heroes he sought came years later, for his ouster.

Today, not one man but a whole nation needs not one but many heroes. We are called to march forward and make possible—through our collective effort—another shining moment in our history, which will be remembered for bringing this nation to the best it can be. If the death of one man is enough to wake a nation, what can the lives of so many of us do when lived in the service of others? The answer we cannot know while sitting idly, but while doing our best to restore the good in this country through another Edsa.

John Joshua P. Mayuga, 19, a political science student of Adamson University, is currently president of AdU-Pulitika and of the South Manila Educational Consortium Student Council.