Without EDSA I Won’t Be Able to Write this Article

Commemorating the EDSA bloodless revolution in the Philippines is a sensitive issue for the family of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. What happened almost forty years ago in February 1986, when the Filipinos ousted Ferdinand E. Marcos, was a nail in the coffin for the deceased dictator who, for fourteen years, unleashed a wave of crimes, arresting, jailing, torturing, and killing thousands of Filipinos critical of the government.

However, the return of the Marcoses to power, culminating with the election of Bongbong Marcos – also known as PBBM – as president in 2022, afforded the family the opportunity to launch efforts to diminish the historical significance of the EDSA uprising and revise the martial law history by using the social media and other platforms.

In 2023, a year after he took office as president, citing “holiday economics,” PBBM declared February 24 as a special non-working day. The following year, however, February 25, the day that ended the Marcos dictatorship in 1986, was excluded from the list of special non-working days, which has been in place since 1987.

I found PBBM’s decision to downgrade the EDSA anniversary unthinkable. I consider it an affront to the millions of Filipinos who trooped to EDSA thirty-nine years ago to drive a dictator away and restore democracy.

Obviously PBBM wants to totally erase EDSA from the collective memory of Filipinos. He probably thinks that the more Filipinos, especially the younger generation, know nothing about the EDSA uprising and why it happened, the better and easier for the Marcos family to sanitize the effects of martial law.

But Filipinos in great number refuse to accept PBBM’s intent sitting down. It may have taken years for Filipinos to absorb the lessons of EDSA, but people are slowly beginning to see the importance of keeping the spirit of EDSA alive, especially now that corruption, among other social problems, remains entrenched in government and the people are clamoring for accountability.

The lessons of EDSA – sadly hijacked in the classrooms for decades by an inept educational system that has failed its students to know the evils of martial law and appreciate the significance of the EDSA revolution – like taking a stand against corruption and fighting for what is right have finally galvanized both students and teachers during the recent commemoration of EDSA.

Led mainly by students from more than 400 schools, colleges, and universities across the country, they defied the government’s effort to downgrade the EDSA holiday celebration as a working holiday.

Thousands of students across the country stormed out of their classes in protest. Other educational institutions suspended classes, organized commemorative conferences and fora, and held various activities, including alternative learning activities to remind the people that the EDSA spirit is alive.

The Catholic Educational Association of the Philippines (CEAP), with more than 1,525 member-schools throughout the Philippines, issued a statement, “The 1986 EDSA People Power revolution shall always be a constitutive dimension of learning of our students. Philippine and Catholic education shall never be without it. CEAP shall push back all attempts to deny, distort, downgrade, and devalue it in our schools, in our communities, and in our life as a nation.”

In a subtle defiance of the government’s directive to make the EDSA commemoration a special working holiday, the Student Council Alliance of the Philippines (SCAP) called on other educational institutions to protest the directive, claiming in a press statement, “The continued exclusion of EDSA from the list of non-working holidays is an attempt to erase its significance and cleanse the name of the Marcoses. But we have the power to resist. As institutions dedicated to truth and nation-building, we must ensure that Filipino students and school communities have the opportunity to commemorate and reflect on this pivotal moment in Philippine history... Schools are not just institutions of learning; they are spaces where history, values, and democratic principles must be upheld.”

University of the Philippines Cebu Chancellor, Leo Malagar, declared February 25 as a “day of commemoration, remembrance, and reflection” for all students, faculty and staff... honor the significance of the EDSA People Power Revolution.

I’ve seen a few criticisms of the students’ militant action on YouTube. I think the schools are where students are taught to think critically and analyze real life problems. In the process, they are able to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to deal with political contradictions and build a just and society based on truth.

By protesting and walking out of the classrooms to defy the government’s effort to diminish the significance of EDSA, the students are expanding their learning potential and exercising their democratic citizenship. By this experience they are also being taught that the need to deconstruct the present system of disseminating knowledge starts with making a decision for or against the revision of history and the distortion of EDSA. This is vital to the process of knowledge construction because the content of education is always embedded with political consideration and action.