It was a hurried flight that left uneaten food on the table, the strongman's diapers strewn around the place with shit, Imelda's 3,000 pairs of shoes, and a paper trail of riches that would send the next regime pursuing leads on his fabled loot all over the globe.
By a "bloodless" political upheaval, the citizenry overthrew the Marcos dictatorship. This is the story that has been told countless times, and extolled the world over. The other one is what is not talked about. In almost all instances, it is not even recognized or realized. It is the situation at that time that was the product of unwavering anti-dictatorship struggle dating back to the day after Marcos put the entire country under martial law. The situation made the so-called "Edsa revolution" imminent.
Nearing the end in the tumultuous days of the first quarter of 1986, right after Marcos won a snap election through massive fraud and cheating, his regime has run smack into a deep crisis. The nature of the crisis was that Marcos could no longer rule the way he used to, by sowing fear. Athwart such was the opposite aspect: the people could no longer be ruled in the same old way, because they have lost fear. If not for the latter, there couldn't have been any mass-up at Edsa.
Every self-styled analyst, instant chronicler and historian would throw in each one's gem of thought about people power revolution and even the miracle at Edsa. But they miss the more salient narrative: the masses ended the reign of a fearsome dictator, because they ended fear. The end was the product of long years of fighting the dictatorship by a minority showing the majority that the only way to vanquish tyranny was to overcome the climate of fear. That led to the birth of people power
The night Marcos fled, I was at the Mendiola Bridge at the head of seven hundred males, mostly drivers and factory workers, that marched from the barricade of four buses around Gov. Forbes and Espana. We have set the barricade earlier in the afternoon to dig in for what may be a long haul. Our contingent had arrived from Cubao on three JD transits and public utility jeepneys.
We figured that the next episode of shifting from the standstill at Edsa, where the great multitude massed, to forceful engagement at the gates of the seat of power would already be bloody, prolong into weeks, and spill into towns throughout the archipelago.
We trudged in military-style formation from Espana towards Morayta, to Recto, Lepanto and around San Sebastian College, ending right in front of the mesh of barbed wires at the bridge. A throng of gays did not leave our side. We asked them to fall behind, as they could not join the seven-man-per-squad elbow to elbow link-up. But they plodded alongside our column. Some of them were saying: "Pag nandoon na tayo, pakurot ha!" (When we get there at Malacanang, allow us to pinch Marcos.)
The cutting of steel proceeded, and the breach on the barricade further widened. It was at this time that an officer of the Presidential Security Command appeared to negotiate for his men to be able to leave melting into the swell of the masses behind us at Recto Avenue. We advised them to just stay for the night in the San Beda campus. Right then, we high-fived: Game Over!
Above the trees lining the university belt, a beautiful moon hovered. History must have its spice of romance. In anticipation of an expected clash, our ranks folded the streamers and banners and what remained were pieces of sturdy wood. Kapit bisig disengaged. A tense moment of anticipation of something epic, but life-threatening, built up our adrenaline. Then, we actually believed we heard low-flying helicopters chugged. I wondered, what could it be?
Shortly after, the buzz went around quickly. Marcos is gone! A portable transistor radio fed the info from Camp Crame. Ha, the bastard had flown the coop? A comrade beside me blurted, "Tumakas ang yawa!" (The monster escaped.) The immediate question was: what are we going to do?
The barbed-wire fence at the Mendiola Bridge was completely gone. The people were surging, raring to dash into the palace. We persuaded them not to yet, worried about loyalist snipers that may lay in ambush and start shooting. But the flood could no longer be contained, the mass of citizenry heaved and pushed. In seconds, everybody was racing towards Malacanang.
Left behind at the bridge, our contingent waited for a command to answer the question: What are we going to do now? That was not the question for the sea of people down Recto and Legarda. The spontaneous and unorganized masses, with no clear and certain direction, upon seeing the barbed wires disappeared darted forward. The formerly meek and subservient from the hovels of poverty around the city suddenly transformed into an unstoppable battering force directed at the seat of power, mindless of grave danger and the death that possibly waited to spring up.
The first thought that dawned was: power still was not going to the millions of common citizens across the country, or to even the portion of them that powered the upheaval at Edsa. It was going to the faction of the elite opposed to Marcos, the other clique of the ruling class long excluded from rule. It was going to the pre-martial law and martial law political opposition, the opportunistic bureaucrat who could easily change color, self-serving politicians riding on the tide of popular defiance, the same pompous exploitative feudal lords of the past, voracious business proprietors, and monopolistic oligarchs overthrown by Marcos and his cronies. For sure, the failed coup leaders - Gringo et al, and generals that rallied with them against the authoritarian Commander-in-Chief in that providential moment will have their share of the luscious power pie.
The gut reaction from those of us in the national democratic ranks was this was not victory for the vast masses. It was also not victory for the consistent revolutionary forces that waged the obstinate and unwavering struggle against the dictatorship since day one in 1972 when Marcos put the country under martial law. In that hour of national jubilation when ordinary citizens coming from different locations were already literally dancing in the streets around Malacanang, we paused for a sigh.
But we are no longer going to die, the thought also dawned. Oh damn, we were ready. What we weren't for was the sudden relaxing of the guard. What we were caught unprepared for was the disappearance of danger. We weren't tuned up to standing genuinely carefree. But oh yeah, there was nothing more to be on war footing. Time to join the fiesta. To my comrades' pleasant surprise, back at Espana where we retreated at 1:00 to 2:00 in the morning, I momentarily dispensed with the clenched fist, and began flashing the L sign and joined the festive crowd in shouting: "Cory! Cory!"
Constitutional authoritarianism, smiling martial law, revolution from the center, New Society, the whole construct of labels and rationale that underpinned repressive rule, crumbled. Fourteen dark years concluded easily in flight. The gut reaction was not to believe it. The monolithic rule that once held a killer military machine beholden only to its whim dissipated in seconds and rushed out the backdoor defenseless. It went in hot-house fashion. Even in downfall, Marcos cheated. We expected a bitter fight to the last. The demon finished on the run with tail between its legs.
Some hoodwinked citizens say, Marcos was brilliant bordering on genius. No, he wasn't. He was dense bordering on megalomania. He was a fool to think he could trick history with fake war medals, fake ambush of his martial law henchman Juan Ponce Enrile, and fake democracy purportedly saved from the communists by martial law, which was no other than the suppression of the civil and political rights of the citizenry by his Rolex generals. He tampered with the inviolable freedoms of the people, believe in unlimited power, and make plundered wealth the cornerstone of his search for a place of greatness among his countrymen. All that is history now, and history judged him harshly.
Yes, for a while the people cowered. For a while, they hurried to go home before they can be caught by the curfew round. They surrendered their weapons of defense to an atrocious military, kept their uneasy peace, and tried to go on with their lives despite the absence of their right to vote, and their freedom to express. In the end, the injustices boiled up to the rim, tolerance snapped.
I was among the circles that at the beginning could not just yield to the dark force in our midst. Marcos intended to be ferocious, to leave no opposition or challenge standing. But right on Day One of Proclamation 1081 when military domination transformed the country into a garrison state, we embarked on the equally ferocious fight to vanquish the evil. From the hills, to the plains, and streets of the urban centers of the 7,100 islands comprising this woebegone archipelago, the flame of the fight for freedom raged,
Finally, 14 years later, the nation of "48 million cowards and one son of a bitch" rose up to kick the son of a bitch in the ass. Three decades have passed after the civilian uprising and military paralysis that send the dictator on the lonely journey out of Malacanang, to Paoay and ignominious exile in Hawaii. Bongbong Marcos, the unapologetic offspring would now want us to ignore the murder and pillage his father wrought on the country, and move on to the future with him probably as the Vice President and perhaps later, President.
To Bongbong I say, the dark years of his father's dictatorial rule are not yet a distant past. It is not so distant as to forget the eerie silence of cowering acceptance, the climate of fear, the stockades with the bestial deeds that happened inside, the arrests without warrant, the involuntary disappearances in the wake of raids by his military minions, the gag on the people's mouth which wanted to say something, and the sanitized pleasures in a fully artificial society.
We in the long resistance wrestled with fear day and night. Courage was high octane. It fueled the endless marches in the streets, the lightning protests, the guerilla theater, the blurting of subversive songs, and operation pinta that refuses to bow to police brutality. It is too soon to cast into oblivion the defiant chants: MARCOS, HITLER, DIKTADOR, TUTA! DIKTADURANG US-MARCOS, LANSAGIN, LANSAGIN, LANSAGIN! No, we'll never forget. As long as there's still one like Bongbong trying to stage a comeback, we shall fight once more.
In commemorating Edsa, February 1986, the end of Marcos's dictatorial rule, let us also remember: the other one that equally fell flat on the floor during those glorious days of people power was the fear that the dictator sowed on the Filipino's hearts.
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