DRIVING THOUGHTS
Pinky Concha Colmenares
Thirty-six years after the EDSA People Power Revolution is a good time to think about the freedoms that bloodless revolution won for the Filipinos.
I had lived through the martial law years and I know what freedoms we lost then. That’s why my husband and I were part of that crowd outside Camp Crame and later, Camp Aguinaldo, responding to the call of Cardinal Sin to go to the camps’ gates to form a human shield to protect the two major players in the coup — then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and then Armed Forces of the Philippines vice chief of staff and chief of the Philippine National Police Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos — who were being asked by former President Ferdinand Marcos to surrender as they had been charged with treason.
On our first night there, we sat at the center island of the thoroughfare in front of the gates of Camp Crame where thousands of people had also gathered, closing the main thoroughfare of Metro Manila from Cubao in Quezon City to Ortigas Avenue in Mandaluyong.
On our second night, we walked farther down EDSA and sat in front of the Camp Aguinaldo gate. The crowds had swelled to “hundreds of thousands” as reported in media.
On the third night, that was on Feb. 24, 1986, we walked the whole stretch of the People Power revolution, up to Ortigas Avenue, which had been taken over by a huge number of people.
It was a long walk but we could not feel the distance because of the crowd. We rested by sitting on newspaper pages on the cemented roadway. There was no time to fall asleep. I still remember the air thick with anxiety and pride of participating in something significant. By now, the whole world knew of “EDSA” and the place swarmed with foreign correspondents carrying cameras hanging from their shoulders.
There was no time to be bored. Someone played the guitar and people sang Bayan Ko. There was no chance to get hungry. People shared what they brought, and often, donors passed a big box of sandwiches, cupcakes and water. In between, we prayed the rosary over and over.
Many listened to transistor radios to monitor what was happening in other parts of EDSA or at Malacañang.
Why was I there with a multitude of strangers in very uncomfortable circumstances? The answer: I had enough of martial law and the many things we feared to do.
I lived most of the martial law years in Bacolod City, far from Malacañang but still affected by all the orders that not only took away democracy but limited movement and speech.
We could not gather in large numbers without a permit, or we would face charges of illegal assembly. Only the authorities determined what is a “large number.”
We could not keep documents or books which have topics critical to the government, especially to Marcos, or about communism, or words that encouraged the mind to question martial law. The charge for that, so we were told, would be possession of subversive materials.
The 12-midnight curfew limited our freedom to move around. It also exposed us to have illegal items such as marijuana being “found” in our “possession” during a routine checkpoint inspection. At that time, illegal possession of illegal drugs could get one a life sentence. Or detention at the stockade — which was what we called the place where offenders of the curfew and other illegal acts were detained for hours, days, months, or until one disappears, according to the seriousness of one’s alleged illegal act.
Absolutely, no one was allowed to carry a gun or a weapon, even for protection as ambushes were not rare in the rural areas those days. Many people I knew went to work in the farms outside the cities. Illegal possession of firearms could get one life imprisonment.
For a period of time, we had no freedom to fill up our vehicles with fuel whenever we wanted to. Fuel was rationed and each family was given coupons to purchase from 70 to 150 liters of fuel a month, depending on one’s business. I remember that a friend who operated trucks to haul sugar would get coupons for 150 liters. It was not surprising that an underground trading of gas coupons came about.
Naturally, there was no freedom of speech. I worked with a community paper after graduation and we were all very careful that we did not criticize the government. Doing so may get us tagged as “subversives” and we knew that was like a one-way ticket to the stockade.
I lost a personal freedom then. For a while I had no freedom to look for more job opportunities. I was told that I was in the “security risk list.” I was invited to work for a community newspaper which was designed after the development communications concept, a creation of martial law. It was no wonder that most of my colleagues in that paper were former detainees, each one sitting out the time they could also look for other jobs.
So to those who may think that EDSA was overrated as a revolution, think again.
The EDSA People Power Revolution did not only restore democracy, it won back the freedoms that you are enjoying now. Can you imagine social media with no freedom of speech?