Friday, October 17, 2014

Unfinished Business

Nothing irritates and distresses me more intellectually and emotionally than fellow Filipinos who should be old enough to know better and should be well-informed enough to understand clearly but who are quick to say to my face that the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution was a failed revolution because the ideals, principles and objectives it had fought for remains unfulfilled and unrealized 28 years hence.

I can be considerate of those who are too young to have been discerning witnesses if not actual participants in the crucial events of those historic few days in February of 1986 and have not bothered to really familiarize themselves with unbiased and accurate accounts of what was clearly one of the most important defining events in the recent history of this country. It is often all too easy to dismiss or, even worse, actually belittle and consider insignificant something that one does not truly understand or know enough about.

I can also disregard the fence-sitters who, 28 years ago, never did commit themselves and merely waited to see which side would prevail in the end and only then loudly proclaim themselves to be wholly, in body and spirit, to have been with the winning side from the very beginning. They did not matter three decades ago and sadly, despite their noisy protestations, still remain irrelevant to this very day.

Finally, I can discount the die hard apologists for the Marcos dictatorship who even nowadays still cling to their delusion that the more than two decades of Apo Ferdinand's authoritarian rule was the best thing that ever happened to this country, the very same people who still desperately peddle like inveterate hucksters their own revised and doctored version of the events leading to EDSA uprising. As far as they are concerned the so called Yellow Revolution will always be just an ill-advised coup d'état, a disastrous putsch that really changed and achieved nothing except unjustly removing from power the one man they all worship as the greatest leader in Philippine history.