Off the Record
bcupin@theguidon.com
He was brilliant. After graduating as valedictorian of the Ateneo High School, he went on to get a degree in Management Engineering (ME) in only four years (ME then was a five year course).
On the surface, he wasn’t much different from us. Like the 2,000-plus students in the graduating batch, his future was filled with possibility. But history (or fate) had something else in mind.
Edgar Jopson, fondly called Edjop, was one of the pivotal leaders of student movements during the time of Ferdinand Marcos. And unfortunately, I knew nothing about him until about a month ago.
Like most people my age, Edjop was just another name (to know more about him, read last month’s Inquiry issue). I also knew the basics of Martial Law and the First Quarter Storm—the who, what, when, where, why and hows—but what I knew wasn’t enough. What was missing in my high school lessons were the little stories that give a better picture of the time.
Edjop’s life was one such story. He is one of the many forgotten heroes of Martial Law. He didn’t have to be a student activist but he chose to be one. My History professor once asked, “What would push these young men and women to do what they did?”
No matter how hard we try to put ourselves in their shoes, nothing can compare to the world Edjop lived in—a world of political, economic and social turmoil. What can be more “down from the hill” than that?
By no means am I advocating a student revolution in Ateneo. The Philippines of the 60s and 70s is worlds away from today. Sure, the same problems plague us but the context is different. They had a dictator then while we have our hated politicians.
Ours is a generation free from the bitter memories of Martial Law. It then becomes easy for us to forget our roots as a country, as a people. Marcos once promised that “[the Philippines] will be great again.” We all know how that ended.
The sad truth is that none of our presidents stayed true to their promise of making our country great. The same History professor told my class that the Philippines is by no means a great nation because, frankly, we haven’t done anything yet. Yet.
There’s a YouTube video of UP Professor Winnie Monsod going around where she talks about how the “intellectual elites” need to stay in the Philippines to elevate the country from its sorry state.
Edjop and the many young men and women like him decided to stick it out here, some even went underground, because they knew that nothing good would happen if they let things be. The danger in forgetting the stories of Edjop, and of manifestos such as Down from the Hill, is that we forget our responsibilities as the intellectual (and financial) crème de la crème.
Memory is a strange thing; it can shackle us and hinder our growth. Or it can empower us and motivate us to make sure mistakes never happen again. If we remember to look back then maybe we can make better sense of wherever we’re going.
