In 1986, when the euphoria of the People Power Revolution had not even died down yet, there were already at least two conflicting narratives. The military version asserted that millions of people could gather at Edsa till kingdom come and Ferdinand Marcos Sr. would still have continued to stay in power if not for the withdrawal of support of the Armed Forces. The other version, coming from the civilians who gathered at Edsa, would highlight the people’s role and diminish, intentionally or not, the importance of the military.
For the civilians, they saved the soldiers belonging to the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) from an almost certain total annihilation by the Marcos soldiers. For the military, they handed power to Cory Aquino. For the civilians, they could have wrested power by themselves. They are still grateful to the military but only for hastening what was inevitably bound to happen.
In a way, there are elements of truth and of falsehood in each of the two versions. On the part of the civilians, it is wishful thinking to believe that they could have forced the Marcoses out by sheer numbers. On the part of the military, it is deceitful to say that they handed power to Cory because they believed she was a victim of massive electoral fraud.
A reliable account on what happened on the military side is given by the historian Alfred McCoy. His research originally came out as a series of articles. Later, it is part of chapter 7 of his book, Closer than Brothers. Gregorio Honasan and his men, who were under the tutelage of the late Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, were indeed plotting a coup against Marcos. Even from a purely military viewpoint, the coup was incompetently conceived. The plot was discovered long before the first bullet was fired. With the element of surprise gone, Enrile believed that their only chance of survival was to proclaim an open revolt.
On the first night, the plotters were extremely vulnerable. But there was a “gentleman’s agreement” that no shot would be fired. Meanwhile, telephone brigades were working overtime. The plotters were calling their fellow officers. When morning came, the hundreds of thousands of people heeded the call of Jaime Cardinal Sin and gathered around Camp Crame. The rest is history.
As McCoy would put it, what was presented as a principled mutiny was actually an aborted coup.
But what would have happened had not people in unprecedented numbers gathered around Camp Crame? We can only speculate but the RAM soldiers were banking on the element of surprise which was no longer there. Furthermore, they were weaker in terms of weapons and number of soldiers.
Again, the outcome of what would have been a bloody confrontation is left to our imagination. But what can be backed up by empirical data is that the economy was falling into a record low from 1984 to 1985. We would have fallen into a bottomless pit if not for the revolution. The state of the economy just before Edsa I has been thoroughly discussed by various authors. But a recent explanation comes from JC Punongbayan in his book, “False Nostalgia.” The economics professor states, “…we never experienced a recession as bad as the Marcosian one until 2020, 35 years after the Marcos’ ouster, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the gross domestic product (GDP) sank by almost 10 percent. But even with the pandemic, the Marcosian crisis can still be legitimately called the worst economic crisis that befell the Philippines since World War II. At the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns, we experienced negative growth but only for five consecutive quarters. In contrast, during the Marcos regime, we experienced decline for nine consecutive quarters.”
Elsewhere, I have explained why I believe we should celebrate Edsa using the paradigm of the theology of memory. But for now, with my limited space, I want to stress that being rescued from unprecedented recession is enough reason to celebrate.
What about those who say that we should stop celebrating Edsa I since its ideals were not fulfilled? Well, the lofty ideals of any revolution cannot be achieved overnight. Maybe, they can never be achieved here on earth, as long as human beings are not angels. But such is no reason not to celebrate Edsa. The ideals of liberate, egalite, and fraternite, were not met after the French Revolution. But the French people continue to celebrate the Fall of Bastille more than two centuries after the event. Thousands of years have passed since the Israelites were liberated from the bondage of Pharaoh. They were not consistent in their faith after the exodus event. Yet, in every Passover meal, they recall that glorious liberating moment in their history.
Why should we be different? We celebrate history not only for the sake of nostalgia, which is a noble reason in itself. But we celebrate history also in order to allow history to judge us. Have we been faithful to the ideals of Edsa? That should be a good material for a future column.