Page 1 - Hello Philippines March 2016 'A' issue

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Connecting Global News & Views For The Community UK & Europe Edition
Jubilant crowd attends the thanskgiving mass on February 28, 1986 celebrated
REMEMBERING THE ‘PEOPLE POWER’bythelateJaimeCardinalSin.PhotosbySonnyCamarillo.
THAT CHANGED A NATION’S DESTINY
MANILA – First, there was
euphoria. The strongman Ferdinand
Marcos, in power for two decades, was
finally ousted after a four-day “EDSA
People Power” revolution that became
a model for bloodless regime change
among countries struggling against
dictatorships in the not-so-distant past. better or worse.
Today, 30 years later, cynics would
say that the so-called “EDSA miracle”
is forgotten or not worth remembering;
or perhaps we as a people really either
have a short memory of a turbulent era
or choose to “move on,” as the young
would put it. For many in their teens
and early twenties, who incidentally
form bulk of the electorate making
choices in the May 9 elections, EDSA
1986 is something completely detached
from them. They were either not yet
born, too young to understand, or don’t
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Ha&ppHyaMppoythEears’steDr!ay Kris shares
thoughts
on freedom,
Martial Law
March 2016
Mrs. Corazon Aquino takes her oath before Justice Claudio Teehankee at Club Filipino, Movement (RAM) members led by Col. Gringo Honasan (right), and General Fidel V. Ramos
with mother-in-law Doña Aurora Aquino (R) holding the Bible.
care to learn from. “They never thought of their own
But it is a fact that once we stood interest. Imagine throngs of protesters
facing tanks of the powerful military,”
proud—and honored—as a freedom- recalled Mogato, now a senior reporter
loving people. Those four days in for Reuters. In 1986 he was then
February 1986 also changed the covering the Quezon City beat for the
country’s direction—whether for the Manila Times, the leading newspaper
before martial law which in 1986
had just resumed publication. It was
As such, the lessons of EDSA and padlocked when Mr. Marcos declared
the heroic acts of a people who once martial law in 1972.
fought for the restoration of democracy
must be retold. Vittorio “Vitug, another young
defense reporter of the Mosquito
Reporter marvels at ordinary folks Press trailblazer Ang Pahayagang
taking risks. Indeed, for then 22-year- Malaya recalled simply that Saturday
old police reporter Manny Mogato, morning (Feb. 22, 1986) would be
it was a privilege to have witnessed just like any other ordinary day—even
“selfless” people from all walks of though tempers were rising after the
life take real risks to life, careers and snap elections that the dictator was
property until Mr. Marcos was forced accused of stealing, and the brazen
to abandon a government he had led Feb. 11 assassination of prodemocracy
mostly with an iron fist since coming to
power in the mid-sixties.
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Volume 7—Number 05
Then defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile, surrounded by Reform the Armed Forces
on the second day of the People Power Revolt.
crusader Evelio Javier of Antique. hearing about the Reform the
Vitug, then one of the young recruits Armed Forces Movement, or RAM,
an underground organization of
who formed the “army” of reporters disgruntled military and police officers.
for Joe Burgos Jr.’s Malaya and WE But the “very secretive” organization
Forum (the latter having reopened had not opened itself to the working
in 1985 after the Supreme Court press.
declared illegal the 1982 military raid
that shut it down and sent Burgos et. The previous year, they unfurled a
al to the stockade), reported early for banner with the words “We Belong”
work that Feb. 22. He didn’t sense during the graduation ceremonies
anything unusual, even after he saw at the Philippine Military Academy
a Sikorsky helicopter and a smaller (PMA), where Mr. Marcos led the rites
Bolkow chopper had begun shuttling as Commander-in-chief.
in and out of Camp Aguinaldo. He
subsequently learned that government Core group with Cory Aquino. During
troops unloaded firearms, which that time, according to the recollection
later turned out to have included the of human-rights lawyer (elected
then-unfamiliar Galil assault rifles, senator post-1986) Rene Saguisag,
the smaller MP5 and ultamax light he and the late businessman Jaime
machine gun with a drum magazine. Ongpin accompanied then opposition
leader Corazon Aquino in a clandestine
The defense reporters had been
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