The current administration does not only hate the celebration of Feb. 25, 1986 ouster of the despised dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. They also want to change the name of Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) into Ferdinand Marcos Sr. International Airport (FMSIA.) In fact, everything that reminds the regime of 1986 should, forthwith, be deleted from textbooks, history books, and scratched from circulation.
The only thing they cannot do is to inflict frontotemporal dementia (FTD) on all Filipinos so that no one will remember the four days at EDSA that kicked out the Marcoses, with their frontal and temporal lobes in the brain atrophied. This might also require the entire stretch of Highway 54, later changed to Epifanio de los Santos Ave. (a long one, since it was originally 54 kilometers), to be jackhammered and replaced and renamed, complete with rituals on a propitious so that Filipinos would no longer recall how the Marcoses fled posthaste, leaving diapers and newly-cooked food in Malacanang.
EDSA was a Marcos nightmare even if it were recognized as the template for kicking out autocrats and fascist dictators. However, EDSA, like other uprisings that were really politically unripe, never quite kicked out the plutocrats, the compradors and landlords and the servitor class that represents foreign interests that the Marcoses also served. They were the big winners at EDSA, and they also welcomed back the Marcos enemies, who were to collaborate with them in “restoring democracy.”
In 2022, the Marcoses tried to “correct” history by positing the dog-eared idea that they were unjustly removed after Reagan asked a subaltern to tell the Marcoses to “cut and cut cleanly,” board a special flight on a Starlifter and head to Hawaii, rather than Paoay. Of course, the celluloid version bombed, a caricature of history narrated by the maids of Malacanang. They failed to hire Jennifer Lopez, of the “Maid in New York” fame, to develop a new narrative for a new history.
They also failed to find a local version of Dr. Peter Pangloss, the eternal optimist who would propound the hoax that the Marcos ideology was the best thing that ever happened to the Philippines. Thus, Bagong Pilipinas, where “defamation” has been excised from the glial cells and neurons of Filipinos, and Bagong Pilipinas, where there is no exploitation and oppression, and the private sector works seamlessly with government for the best interest of sheeple. To restore cultural pride, the masses can feed their bellies with what the soon-to-rise majestic P18-billion Philippine International Exhibition Center (PIEC) would showcase.
This is plutocracy and corporatism working hand-in-hand, something so similar to the promise of Benito Mussolini to the Italian people that the trains would run on time, wages would rise and government would ensure that pizzas are delivered hot, crime would wither away and the Mafia and Cosa Nostra would become patriots, no more extortion, no summary executions, all for the greater glory of Il Duce. So good was Mussolini in winning support that the Cardinal of Milan became a close friend.
With the Marcoses frowning on EDSA celebrations, they should be celebrating the deal to spruce up NAIA, yank out the memorial to Ninoy Aquino at the tarmac and erase from the books any reference to the murder heard round the world on August 21, 1983. There was no double murder at the tarmac, only two guys who did not know each other committing suicide at the same time by shooting the backs of their heads at the same time.
So, what was EDSA-Pwera? The sectors that fought against the Marcos regime consistently did not benefit from the “restoration of democracy.” There was no inkling that democracy would mean higher wages, and the legions of martial law abusers would be put on trial, all because those who organized to oust the Marcoses were themselves part of the torturing horde during martial law. Those who were stripped of their properties by the Marcoses regained their assets. The masses had to pay for the huge debt of the regime, and they got no respite since Cory Aquino did not seek the condonation of what economists have dubbed as “odious debt.”