Baguio Insider

It was 11:00 p.m. on February 22, 1986, and Butch Sebastian’s birthday. We were all partying at his Capitol Homes pad when we heard over the radio that there was something weird going on at Camp Aguinaldo. Enrile and Ramos had announced that they were withdrawing their support of Ferdinand Marcos and accused the latter of cheating in the recent elections. The party broke up earlier than usual and after reaching home, and my mom, her friend and I drove to EDSA, like true “ociosos” (”busybodies” in English, “mga usisero” in Filipino), to check out what was happening.

Cardinal Sin had appealed to the public to bring the rebel soldiers some food. That man was absolutely brilliant. He knew he could not expect the public to support Marcos lackey Juan Ponce Enrile and his boys in their rebellion. But they needed the protective “cover” of warm bodies so that Camp Aguinaldo would not be stormed by Marcos’s military. Because he knew that Filipinos were a very generous people, especially when it came to food, it was Sin’s ingenious idea to get the public there bearing gifts of canned biscuits, pan de sal, “bigas” (uncooked rice), etc. Of course, Camp Aguinaldo was well stocked as far as food supply was concerned, enough to last a short war, but the public did not know that.

So when we got there that first night, everything was surprisingly peaceful. There was nothing much happening except for lots of food being hoisted over the tall iron gates, and celebtities like Celeste Legaspi looking very involved. There were not that many people there, but even then, cars kept arriving and just pulled over anywhere in the middle of EDSA, which was then a busy highway with a speed limit of 80kph. Ahh those were the days when you could actually practice highway driving on EDSA.

There were no cellular phones then or text brigades. RT was the hip FM radio station and no one but the “household help” listened to AM radio. But that night, the whole of Manila was tuned to the AM broadcasts and people were just drawn to EDSA. Everyone was tuned to Radio Veritas, the Catholic radio station.

For those of you who were born late, Marcos had called for snap elections for February 7, 1986 after lording it over the country for 20 years and, though many of us could not imagine life after Marcos (after all, we saw him on TV and in the newspapers every single day decreeing things “presidential”), we rallied around his only opponent, Ninoy Aquino’s shy widow Cory. The talk then was that if a dog ran against Marcos we would vote for the dog.

There were fears that Cory knew nothing about running a country, but looking back now, who did? Marcos imprisoned, exiled, killed, coopted or otherwise silenced all opposition to his rule. Generals overstayed, and no one was groomed to take his place, except maybe his wife Imelda, who, although beautiful, intelligent and charming, was getting crazier by the minute.

No one gave Cory a snowflake’s chance in hell of winning the elections, but we campaigned for her anyway. For she represented hope, the light at the end of a long dark tunnel. No one knew if the other end was any better but things were just so awful on our side that many were willing to risk everything just to see what was at the other end. She was Marcos’s antithesis. Pure and clean, politically sinless, fraught with good intentions, and best of all, aggrieved by Marcos when her husband, Ninoy, returning from exile in 1983, was murdered very brazenly and publicly while in government custody.

Plus, during the campaign, Marcos so ungallantly released a radio advertisement of a woman’s voice, sounding very much like Cory’s saying, “Wala Akong Alam.” That backfired and got ALL the women, the mothers, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, nieces, daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, granddaughters up in arms and wearing her colors. Can you imagine the effects of uniting the stronger, more vocal, more influential sex in Philippine society on the side of Cory? This meant than husbands and sons had no other choice but to go along if just for the sake of peace!

Of course no one expected her to win. But the Filipinos, long deprived of a voice in Philippine politics, were just so hungry and eager to exercise their right to vote. And to campaign, and to debate. Yes, we listened to speeches then and it was possible to campaign without singing and dancing like monkeys on stage, arguing on the issues instead. The candidates were the celebrities, not vice versa.

Then of course, Marcos won the elections, whether legitimately or through the use of guns, goons, and gold, we’ll really never know. But did KBL henchmen have to gun down Atenean Evelio Javier in public in Antique, creating yet another martyr? And of course the counting took forever with ballot boxes being violently siezed from nuns, lay women, and ordinary townspeople guarding them. And of course, the official count did not tally with the NAMFREL (National Movement for Free Elections, the election watchdog) count. Then there were U.S. “observers” who democratically stated that “there was cheating on both sides.” Tell me, how would it have been possible for Cory’s supporters to cheat if (a) they had no control over the count and (b) they had none of Marcos’s guns, goons and gold?

So, still frustrated over the conduct of the elections, Cory called for everyone to go on “civil disobedience.” That meant we would not pay our taxes, or patronize the products of Marcos supporters and cronies. For a 21-year old UP Law freshman and her much older, “bad influence,” graduating law students, drinking buddies, that required the supreme sacrifice abstaining from San Miguel Beer.

So, during Butch’s party that night, we were drinking vodka instead. Of course the absence of our absolute favorite beverage had a direct impact on the quality of the conversation and the mood of the group. The party broke up very happily and, as it turns out, unbeknownst to me, all the boys also went to EDSA, seeking some “action” but there was none to be had that first night.

How could we have known that we were to take part in the single most momentous event in Philippine modern history?

Next on EDSA 1986 Revisited: The UP Law Liberation Forces

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* Author’s Notes:

1. Shallow Sally is my collection of Stories of Survival. Some stories were published in another blog and I plan to move them here soon, until they can find their own home on the web.

2. I am Shallow Sally (read: mababaw na lisa).

3. Edsa 1986 Revisited is published here because I have not set up the SSSoS site yet and I just had to do an EDSA piece this year to make up for Gloria’s failure to declare this a long weekend and ruining many people’s plans to come up for the Panagbenga. (I just had to find a Baguio connection here!)