FOUR DAYS of EDSA ( Day 2)

Discordant Notes

February 23, 2012

FOUR DAYS of EDSA ( Day 2)

Arturo P. Garcia

Away from where the action is, we were like boxing or basketball aficionados listening to the radio and getting a blow by blow account on what is happening in EDSA in Metro Manila on the second day of the Mexican stand-off. And that was February 23, 1986.

To facilitate the news, we assigned people to listen every hour on different stations. We assigned them to listen to specific radio stations like the DZRH, Radio Veritas, the government radio and the foreign broadcast namely the BBC, the VOA and the Far East Broadcasting Corporation (FEBC) based in Manila but was broadcasting via shortwave.

We discussed and analyzed the news as it comes.

We also assigned people to listen on their rounds, so while the others sleep, others can still listen to the news  as they do their daily chores. Everybody were glued to their radio sets. And then we made it a point to hoard batteries because we feel that the crisis will go on for days.

All the radio stations gave a blow by blow account especially when the breakaway group of Enrile and Ramos transferred from indefensible Camp Aguinaldo or the DND building to a more defensible Camp Crame, the headquarters of the PNP that is very loyal and controlled by FVR.

The evening earlier, Cardinal Sin made a call to the public to mass at EDSA to protect the breakaway duo who from the broadcast made a public confessions of their sins against the people and asked the people to protect them

It was a revealing moment when Enrile admitted the fake ambush in 1972 and the cheating in Cagayan Valley. We were right after-all and we were elated that the truth about election rigging in the northern provinces were validated by the guy who made it possible. The old warlord who was so arrogant is now trembling at his unknown fate and is laying on the table the truth at last.

And we were surprised that Enrile and Ramos admitted that Cory Aquino won the elections and they were offering to recognize her as  the elected president of the Philippines. I smiled and thought, how desperate men clutch at straw at their desperate hours.

And then we confirmed the fact that days before, the rag-tag PC Major Rodolfo Aguinaldo’s private army composed of former NPA rebels, Negrito fighters and CHDF from several towns of Cagayan were transported by bus to Manila.

Yes, we missed how these arrogant bands who usually marched in the town centers, manned the checkpoint and brutalized the people everyday, harass religious and human rights workers and even ordinary people—everyday.  And all of a sudden they were gone.

We also confirmed that companies of PC soldiers under Provincial Commander Tirso Gador, fresh from his advance schooling in Fort Benning , Georgia the personal bodyguard of Defense Minister Enrile who was also from Cagayan also went to Manila riding public busses in civilian clothes to converge in Manila to take part in the failed coup.

Later we learned that they manned the defense building in Camp Aguinaldo where Enrile and Ramos made their press conference. We saw their faces on the morning Manila newspapers that filtered the provincial capitols.

Later we  learned from the radio that they were being armed from the helicopters coming from the provinces that dropped arms cache on top of the MND building in Camp Aguinaldo.

That morning, the still confident dictator paraded before the media, his generals and captured coup plotters and proudly announced that they discovered and quelled the palace coup that was hatched by the RAM led by Col. Gregorio Honasan. He asked the Defense minister and the PC Chief and also the Vice-Chief of staff to surrender peacefully.

He even commented; “This is the most documented mutiny I have ever seen in my life. So, Minister  Enrile and General Ramos, IO again ask you---surrender now because all your actions are duly recorded.”

It was very quiet in the provinces because nearly all the army and the PC camps were empty. It seems everybody were in Manila. But it was very silent and we were not used to that silence. The only time that obscure silence occurred was the day when Senator Aquino was killed in the airport. And that was August 21, 1983.

We made a joked. That this is the time that the NPA must declare that the provinces in the north are “liberated areas”. But they did not do it. Maybe they did not like the joke. Or maybe they do not have the capacity to do that. Or both.

One by one, politicians have switched sides. I heard a former navy officer resign and placed his bet on the side of the people. The DZRH as well as Radio Veritas has reported there were millions of  people in EDSA.

We all concluded that that will be a long night.

The second long night at EDSA.

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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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My Last Valentine

Discordant Notes

My Last Valentine

Arturo P. Garcia

As far as I remember,the last time I celebrated Valentine’s Day was during my high school days. And that was decades ago.

I gave my high school girl friend a red rose I plucked from my Lola’s garden and a big lollipop candy I bought from Baguio City last December. And as always, a sweet smile comes to me when I remember those happy high school days.

The only sad fact is that even she was my girl friend, I loved another and the problem is that she does not love me. Ouch!

From that time on, I never had any Valentine’s Day celebration. Until the youth group marked this day as “Love for the People” Day. From then on, it was an obligation to show myself to this event and watch from a distant, how people marked this day.

A famed guerilla commander said and explained it. And i beleived in it. “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality... We must strive every day so that this love of living humanity will be transformed into actual deeds, into acts that serve as examples, as a moving force.”

For me, I have loved several women for sometimes. One at a time.

Remember unsolicited love, forbidden love, love that never meant to be, name it, I experienced it. And as the other people says; “Its all fair in love and war.” But I don’t believe it.

Just as capitalism is not fair, and will never be fair, I believe that all will only fair in a just and equitable society and then people can love without the property factor or selfishness or individualism that has been the rule in this cruel and real world.

Well, all I can say is that for true lovers, Happy Valentines, comrades and friends!

And for those who have not found love yet and loveless , may you find true love.

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