i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
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TWO AT EDSA<br />
‘When the wheels of<br />
history turn, you hardly<br />
expect the world to<br />
turn upside down’<br />
ED LINGAO<br />
DURING THE last<br />
Edsa anniversary<br />
celebrations, we<br />
thought of having<br />
a reporter find out<br />
what the younger<br />
generation knew of Edsa.<br />
Some excerpts:<br />
Question: What was Edsa ’86<br />
about?<br />
Answer: …it was a massacre,<br />
right?<br />
Question: What was Edsa ’86<br />
about?<br />
Answer: A strike?<br />
Question: When did the 1986<br />
Edsa revolution occur?<br />
Answer: Sometime in 1989… Oh<br />
no, it was in 1990.<br />
The event that made a generation<br />
so proud to be Filipino, made<br />
us stand straighter when we heard<br />
the national anthem, that one event<br />
that defined us in the eyes of the<br />
world, may as well have been,<br />
<strong>for</strong> a different generation, another<br />
episode of “Wow Mali!”—except<br />
this was a lot funnier than anything<br />
Joey de Leon could cook up. It<br />
would have been hilarious had it<br />
not been so sad.<br />
What makes it so painful is the<br />
fact that these interviewees were<br />
not comedians or bums hanging<br />
out at the neighborhood sari-sari<br />
store. They were Metro Manila<br />
college students from private<br />
schools. These were the crème de<br />
la crème. One shudders at what<br />
the rest of the crop thinks.<br />
I was among those massed at<br />
Edsa in 1986, a dot among a couple<br />
million other Filipinos. I was<br />
still a junior at UP at the time, and I<br />
had come with a few of my college<br />
buddies. But we soon lost each<br />
other in the crowd and I found<br />
myself near some praying nuns.<br />
That’s when Times<br />
photographer<br />
Pete Reyes snapped that photo<br />
that would be the iconic image<br />
of that one hot Sunday afternoon<br />
in Ortigas when nothing mattered<br />
more than standing still.<br />
The expressions on the faces of<br />
the nuns froze a precious moment<br />
of terror and fright as the marines<br />
started the engines of their LVTs,<br />
those huge, boxlike amphibian<br />
tanks. Everyone sit, someone shouted,<br />
and everyone in front did. Some<br />
rushed <strong>for</strong>ward to put their hands<br />
against the hot metal, only to feel<br />
how frighteningly solid and heavy<br />
eight tons of armor must be. The<br />
marines gunned their engines, and<br />
the exhaust pipes spewed black<br />
against the sky. Suddenly, the tank<br />
jerked <strong>for</strong>ward, and the marine on<br />
top of the tank begged everyone to<br />
clear a path or be crushed under the<br />
tracks. People were screaming and<br />
crying. But the line stayed. The tank<br />
jerked <strong>for</strong>ward again, and we shut<br />
our eyes and prayed that the driver<br />
had children of his own. And still<br />
the line stayed.<br />
Nineteen years later, the line<br />
was broken beyond repair. In fact<br />
the line had changed so many<br />
times that it was hard to recall<br />
who stood with you then. Post<br />
Edsa, Cory went one way, Enrile<br />
went the other; the Marcoses came<br />
back, not to be prosecuted, but to<br />
Ed Lingao (in dark<br />
glasses) faced the tanks<br />
in Edsa 1. Above photo<br />
shows him posing in<br />
front of a tank while<br />
covering the Iraq war.<br />
be icons of the new young (“Aiii,<br />
ang pogi- pogi ni Bongbong! [Ay,<br />
Bongbong is so handsome!]”) or<br />
fashion statements. Imelda was<br />
allowed to be herself, which was<br />
perhaps as good a punishment as<br />
any. <strong>No</strong> one, whether coup plotter<br />
or plunderer or human-rights abuser,<br />
was sent to jail. Those rounded<br />
up were the usual suspects—the<br />
activists, the strikers, the eternally<br />
discontent. It all sounds so trite,<br />
yet it all sounds so true. Colors<br />
changed so blindingly fast, and the<br />
rainbow coalition soon saw <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
street parliamentarians rubbing<br />
elbows with some of the biggest<br />
Marcos cronies. Ninoy’s Laban became<br />
the LDP, which was soon led<br />
by those who laughed in Ninoy’s<br />
face a decade be<strong>for</strong>e. Later, the parliamentarians<br />
would become the<br />
cronies, and the dictator’s cronies<br />
would act like persecuted activists.<br />
When the wheels of history turn,<br />
you hardly expect to see the world<br />
turn upside down.<br />
We were under no illusion<br />
that the revolution was over<br />
when Marcos left. But we never<br />
thought that people would <strong>for</strong>get<br />
EDSA. Sometimes it seems they<br />
never even heard of it at all.<br />
The author is a TV journalist who<br />
covered the Iraq war and the conflict<br />
in Mindanao. He is now head<br />
of news operations of ABC-5.<br />
30 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT