Four Days of EDSA 1 ( Day 1)

Discordant Notes

February 22, 2012

Four Days of EDSA 1 ( Day 1)

By Arturo P. Garcia

I was in the provinces when the People’s Uprising in EDSA 1986 occurred.

Being away from the center of the action in Manila, has different  perception  and really is very different on what the newspapers has heralded all these years.

As always, “history is written on the eyes of the victors.” And sad to say, the victors, those who claimed EDSA 1, and all those have claims to what happened have different versions on how it happened.

But to make the story short, EDSA uprising of 1986 also known as EDSA 1, was a confluence of events. Earlier on November 1985, the dictator by the order of his American bosses, called for an election January 1986. And the campaign by end year 1985 began in earnest.

Marcos was very sure that the election was his. He was expecting Doy Laurel of UNIDO to be his competitor but  to his surprise and dismay --Ninoy Aquino’s widow, Cory Aquino entered the fray. This was due to the intervention of the Catholic Church, most of  all Cardinal Sin. 

Marcos could have won the elections hands down. But he want to win by landslide so he can show off to his imperialist bosses, especially to his friend-Ronald Reagan who just won a second term in office.

But to his dismay, even with the COMELEC ( the so-called election body that people knows as the Marcos cheating machine ) and the AFP at his command , the lead would only amount to less than 200,000 votes. He has to do something and he ordered his minions especially the Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile to get his votes in Cagayan Valley.

Meaning he has to get a two million lead in Cagayan Valley by cheating and falsifying the elections returns although, his lead in the region was less than half a million. Even it in this so called “Solid North”, the cracks are already showing. We were there so we know what really happened.

Not contend with this COMELEC maneuvers, blatant election violence were reported everywhere even in the Greater Manila area in front of the media and the foreign press. Ballot snatching, ballot box switching, harassments, political violence were committed even in the urban areas.

Cory people even candidates were killed, arrested or even tortured. Four Cory  youths were killed and tortured in Nueva Vizcaya. The Killing of opposition leader Evelio Javier in Antique echoes the killing of Senator Aquino way back 1983.

The call resonated in the mass actions of the masses who abhored heating and election violence: "TAMA NA, SOBRA NA, PALITAN NA!  DIKTADURANG US MARCOS, LANSAGIN, LANSAGIN, LANSAGIN! ( Dismantle the US Marcos-Dictatorship)!

It was so blatant that the people, both here in the Philippines and abroad, boycotted the Marcos media when Cory called for civil disobedience and the people’s movement, the anti-dictatorship front was united in this call. The mosquito press flourished. And the Marcos media eat the dust and the people’s anger.

We have to point out, that for the last three years, the armed struggle went on a heighten scale after the Aquino Assassination of 1983. More and more NPA actions raging from platoon to company size attacks raged throughout the country. The NPA began attacking town halls, platoon and company size detachments and clobbered the AFP forces everywhere.

The bloody civil war caused by Marcos escalated all over the Philippines.

The MILF also increased its tempo of attacks against the US-Marcos AFP in Mindanao. This bled the AFP white and more and more AFP officers rebels due to the mounting casualties and corruption in the armed forces. 

This was aggravated by the mounting mass actions in their millions in the urban areas of the Philippines. The mass actions in their millions ranged from People’s Marches, Caravans, protests and festivities that took  both  religious and militant meanings from 1983 that culminated to the four day festival in EDSA itself.

This all happened not just in four days in EDSA but  all in the last three years from 1983- 1986. We felt  somethings will happen that fateful day of February 22, 1986 when we heard that Enrile and General Ramos broke away from Marcos that Sunday Night.

The Catholic owned Radio Veritas broadcasted it live and we heard it over shotwave broadcast from abroad especially from the Voice of America. FEBC and the BBC.

Yes, we were surprised but we were expecting it. We felt the sudden silence when we heard that AFP forces were moving towards Manila and all were silent in the major towns of the north.

All of a sudden. The military were gone and people were wondering where did they go.

And the rest was history.

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