The past months, news headlines have been filled with stories whose foundations can be traced back—whether directly or indirectly—to the Marcos era and the revolution that ended it. There’s Bongbong Marcos’ unabashed invocation of his father’s “legacy”, the glorification of Rodrigo Duterte and his Machiavellian campaign for “peace and order”, and the seizure of the People Power’s memory by those whose battles have borne little to no resemblance to the fact.
One would think that people who have suffered tremendously have grown sensitive to the nuances of appropriations and repetitions across their temporal space. We have not.
That what is supposedly the first story in the genesis of our national identity is constantly faced with contempt and/or poor understanding is perhaps the central problematique.
The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution is the event that incised the Filipino nation in the annals of history. It is the victory we can definitively call our own, so to claim it as the beginnings of a truly Filipino nation is not absurd at all. Yet what was supposed to begin our upward trek as a nation did not fulfill its promise, not from the fact of the event itself but because of the many glosses washed over its retelling or lack thereof.
Perhaps it is the luxury of distance that granted many in our generation the audacity to look to the Marcos regime as the “Golden Age”. We weren’t there. What we know of those times are puzzle pieces we force to fit. The statistics say we had a booming economy. They say the streets were quiet. They say there was only “collateral damage.” We look at these statistics and say, “It wasn’t all that bad,” “Sacrifices had to be made.” Because the lives of over 100,000 people, who were either imprisoned, tortured or killed were necessary payments for “peace, order and economic prosperity.” Right?
We digest this data without caution or heed for context; “It is what the facts, the evidence suggests.” We do not realize that the facts have little congruence with the truth.
The story of our revolution suffers the same fate; there are so many layers added to the story of EDSA that few can see what it really was. The densest assertions: That EDSA was a Manileño revolt and was an intervention of faith. It was not, even if chronology suggests it to be.
To recall People Power, as a Manila-centric, faith-induced revolution is tantamount to accusing everyone who wasn’t there and who wasn’t a member of “the faithful” of silence, when demonstrations of the same nature were being waged in many other parts of the country by a diverse collection of people who had had enough. The EDSA Revolution was a revolution of the people.
There is value to revisionism, if only because it exposes a terrible lack of reflection in the creation of our narratives. But the brand that exists in the country is one that dichotomizes our view of history into binaries that create flimsy standards in understanding our present and contemplating our future.
The problem is complex, but at the base of it is a realization that ignorance is learned and that the way we use facts to construct historical narratives reflects how our society views itself.
