The EDSA People Power Revolution: Thirty-two years of freedom
THE martial law era, under the bloody regime of the l ate dictator Ferdinand Marcos, not only left an indelible mark on us Filipinos, it also engraved the name of our country on the globe, when people from all walks of life came together to join in the bloodless People Power Revolutio at Epifanio de los Santos Avenueto (EDSA ) in 1986 – fighting for the freedom that we enjoy today.
However, recent years have seen a campaign to rewrite history and wipe away the atrocities of Marcos and his cronies. The misguided now claim the martial law era was the “golden years of the Philippines” – when on the contrary, it was the darkest hour in Philippine history.
Today, on the EDSA People Power Revolution’ s 32 nd anniversary ,48- years-old activist Elmer Forro told Panay
News about the martial law he witnessed. When Marcos fled the country after the bloodless revolution, he was only nineyears old.
“I was three years old when martial law was declared,” Forro shared, tears already building up in his eyes. “And I was nine-years old when there was an attempt to kill my father, who was not even an activist – tatay was a Marcos loyalist. But he had some conflict with someone whose brother was in the military, during that time the armed forces wielded unquestionable power and often abused it in their favor. It was an argument about the boundaries of our farmland. They used their connections in the military to attempt to kill and my brother.”
“It was only when I went to college when I was able to study history and realize that those atrocities happened because the country was under martial law. That was my first martial law experience,” he narrated.
“We were among the people who clapped every time we heard Marcos’ speech on the radio during that time. People in our
purok often gathered to listen to Marcos with the radio owned by my father, who at that time was the purok president,” he said. “It is still fresh to me when I recall the incident. That occurrence really made i t hard for our family. Wasak guid amon family
eh since my father was the bread winner. My two eldest brothers were already in college, we had one sibling in high school and two of us were in elementary. My mother completely broke down when my father had to became a fugitive to avoid being persecuted, despite not having done any wrong.”
Forro’s father went into hiding after that incident to save his life
“From 1978 to 1986, for eight years, my father would move from one place to another,” he shared. “It was only after Martial Law that my father was able to come home to us. That’s when our lives went back to normal and the threat to my father’s life was gone.”
Even at the then secluded Isulan, Sultan Kudarat where Elmer Florro lived during the Marcos regime, unpleasant news about the era spread, as the government- controlled media only reported on the positive and the achievements of the state, sweeping atrocities, corruption, and widespread suppression of free speech under the rug.
“People coming from different places, people who went to study in Iloilo and Metro Manila would bring home haunting stories about martial law,” he shared, disputing that martial law was merely something to keep Filipinos “disciplined.”
“I believe a person who says that martial law fosters discipline does not fully understand the meaning of it. The stories of all the directly victimized people who I have been able to talk to proves that it was the darkest hour of the country,” he affirmed.
“The signs and symptoms of martial law right now is strong, judging on the political situation we are currently experiencing: The harassment, the culture of fear that is being spread across the country and the open statement of president [Rodrigo Duterte] that he idolizes Marcos,” warns Forro.
“I am not even a direct victim of the atrocities of that time, but as a child, emotionally I could really feel it. When I hear about it, it really gives me pain for what Filipinos had to endure and experience. It could possibly be repeated again if a Marcos-like Martial Law will be implemented again,” he related on the possibility of a nationwide martial law declarartion.
The freedom that we enjoy today did not just fall into our hands. It was paid for with blood, our people’s blood, blood of the martyrs who sacrificed their lives fighting for the country, blood of the people who dreamed of a better tomorrow.
So to the youth who Forro says are “socially conscious, more open to ideas, and the most critical because of the privilege of going to school,” the activist leaves leaves to them a message: “Stand firm on your part in the society, you represent the intellectual majority of the country. Don’t be daunted in fighting for what is right because we believe that the truth will set us free. We encourage the youth to be knowledgeable and to be critical and speak up about the truth that they see because we need the truth to be above the lies in these times.”
On the 32nd anniversary of the revolution which bloodlessly won us our freedom, may fortune’s wheel not turn to and bring the monsters of the past to come back to haunt us again. May we be able to sustain our freedom, it is still our advocacy as Filipinos just as the People Power song ‘Bayan ko’ states, “aking adhika makita kang sakdal laya!”/