Sunstar Essay: Cory in Edsa

Saturday, December 3, 2011

A FRIEND asked if the congressman who filed a bill seeking to rename Edsa (Epifanio de los Santos Ave.) into Cory Aquino Ave. was kidding.

All of these efforts of naming and renaming streets are attempts to “construct places of memory.” But renaming streets too often (as often as the congressional elections occur) would make even the local residents be lost in their own home grounds.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

So who (and what’s the more memorable)—Epifanio de los Santos (Edsa) or Cory Aquino?

Back in college in the early ‘60s, an uncle used to drive me from Quezon City, where I stayed during school days with his family, to the airport since the construction of a new road made it possible for commuters from Quezon City to reach the place without necessarily passing by messy traffic in the old streets in old Manila.

In this long street, there were few buildings along the way, some lengths of the road were also unpaved. Since most of the time my plane flights were of the discounted fare on top of the student discount, my trips home to Cebu and back were always at dawn or at nightfall. So the road from Quezon City to the Manila airport in Pasay (now the Ninoy Aquino International Airport) to my eyes was deserted, too silent, too dark, too far (54 kilometers).

But, thank God, there was no traffic in this road I knew as Highway 54.

Much earlier during the administration of president Manuel Quezon in the ‘40s, this expressway was constructed and it was first named 19 de Junio Ave. (after Jose Rizal’s birthday). It was later renamed Highway 54, then Edsa. There was even a time much earlier when the Americans wanted to call it (Gen. Douglas) MacArthur Highway even as supporters of president Ramon Magsaysay also wanted to rename the street after the late president.

Edsa, to my mind, is a story of a people in the 20th century—not just a road, not just a person. As a road, it’s in honor of Epifanio de los Santos (1871-1928)—historian and journalist who was part or behind valiant newspapers, in the beginning with Gen. Antonio Luna’s La Independencia during the Spanish times and later during the American era: La Libertad, El Renacimiento, La Democracia, La Patria during the American period. All these firm voices called for full independence for the country from America.

The street was named after de los Santos in 1959. Also as a great Filipino librarian, he compiled many papers and sources on the Philippine Revolution, like details in Andres Bonifacio’s heroism. Without this historian, we would never have had a great part of Philippine history recorded and honored.

Cory, for her part, was a brave woman in the face of a dictator’s sin against his people. She was, perhaps, even braver than some men around her in that moment of national consequence, the Edsa Revolution. In the high impact of a meaningful act, Cory would speak her heart out to rally the huge crowds, with everyone in the country watching over television and radio.

I was completely moved and most thankful for her strength, my eyes would water at the sight of this woman talking to her countrymen in thousands at Edsa. While I’d sniff while watching TV, afraid for the country, Cory spoke without a crack in her voice, a show of strength you’d not expect from a woman. The whole world watched this with wonder.

Rename Edsa?

There is always close interest in renaming of streets. Some names are numerical, others indicators of street types or areas, generic or identified names, or lettered, for more confusion and quarrels in Congress over street names.

The names are of persons with value in deed, of locations, events, numerical identifications, and they are not just plain streets but avenues, boulevards, drives, districts. When it gets political, clans get more names filed and passed in a province, events are marked then unmarked, changed and forgotten
Yes, Cory was the top man in Edsa and Edsa will stay where it is in Metro Manila and in our history.