Having happened some 40 years ago, it’s likely that the many who were present at the EDSA People Power Revolution have fuzzy memories of the event. For me, however, the memory is still clear as day. After all, it was one of the most unforgettable in my young life.
I was four-years old when I experienced the EDSA People Power Revolution. My family after all, were activists, and were quite involved in many of the protests leading up to the event. In truth, it was grandfather who was among the most pivotal of them all. He was Joaquin ‘Chino’ Roces, the man who stood out on street corners months before asking people for signatures to convince the wife of then slain Senator and possibly Presidential hopeful Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino, Cory, to run against the then President Ferdinand Marcos in snap elections. Many protests followed the snap election held earlier that month, wherein some anomalies were alleged to have happened, leading to the then President declaring victory, despite many claims of the opposite happening.
Nonetheless, at just four-years old, I was not aware of any of this. What I do remember was being at home, with my sister, both watched by a babysitter as both my parents and my grandfather were out at protests. We received a call late in the afternoon to come to EDSA and meet them.
We hailed a taxi and made our way to EDSA. Due to the massive crowd, our taxi was only willing to drive up to the Greenhills Commercial Center. There, we got off and began the long walk to the short stretch of EDSA between Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo, passing by La Salle Greenhills and Wack Wack Village. It was a long walk for my little legs, and I remember already complaining I was tired by the time we were in front of the Wack Wack gate. Nonetheless we pressed on, with my babysitter motivated by some urgency I didn’t know what for.
(MB PHOTO)
By the time we got round the intersection of EDSA and Ortigas, there was already a sea of people. I’m not sure how we navigated passed them all. All I remember was holding on to my babysitter and sister’s hands through it all out of fear of losing them in a dense crowd. In what seemed like ages of pushing past giants, we somehow found my parents in that crowd.
My father met us and I couldn’t be more relieved that I was finally being carried. Or so I thought. I was being hoisted up and was caught by a soldier. He put me atop his tank. To my naïve yet wide-eyed mind, it seemed like the perfect reward to a day of walking. It was actually an armored personnel carrier APC, but that didn’t matter to four-year old me who was playing with his little green army men and tanks just earlier that day. As long as it had tank treads, camouflaged armor, and a gun on top, it was a tank to me. I was suddenly a happy boy, and it seemed like the entire sea of people was celebrating with me.
There on top of the tank, I could see the massive crowd stretching as far the eye could see. People from all walks of life, soldiers, civilians, nuns, all joining in and singing along with the blaring music, the People Power Revolution’s popular hymns were playing on repeat all through the afternoon. Rosaries, flowers, and hands were waving in the air. It all seemed like a massive street party, a rare event of people celebrating in unison.
It was only several years later that I came to understand what really happened that day during history lessons at school. It could have been a bloody revolution. Those tanks, especially the one I was so happy to sit atop of, were there for force, not for the delight of a naïve little boy. Nonetheless I’m glad my parents didn’t tell me what was really going on that day. I might not have understood it, much less even make the long trek to get there.
I thankfully did not lose any family members that day, but I do appreciate now why my family shielded me from the realities of that era. For me, it was all happy memories, no trauma, no bad memories buried in the subconscious. I can freely look back at them today with fondness, and thankfully a more mature mind to understand what really happened that day. It truly was a rare and beautiful day of the country coming together. And for a naïve little Filipino boy, the day he finally won his life-size tank.