EDSA ‘yellowed’
APOST EDSA One review of events leading to the departure of President Ferdinand Marcos, poses several questions. Thirty-three years passing, the people power revolution is predominantly a cacophony of “yellow voices” breast-beating over the victory of a singular name as mother of restored Philippine democracy. All other significant personalities, of equal value, relegated to subordinate status, with the narrative that “people taking to the streets with chants and flowers” would have sufficed to end several decades of a political regime?
As I rewind the oath-taking at Club Filipino in 1986 administered by SC Justice Claudio Teehankee, the intent at creating a semblance of constitutional succession is foremost in the required ceremony via the recitation of a president’s mandatory oath or affirmation upon assuming office. Of interest is determining the exact period, when the new “yellow president” contemplated the eventual declaration of a “revolutionary government.” Before Club Filipino, or later? Upon the advice of a triumvirate, referred to then as a Council of Trent?
Referencing video archives of the actual oath taking, the perplexing point arises when certain mandatory phrases are omitted under Article 7 The President, Section 5, of the 1973 Constitution. I refer to, “preserve and defend its constitution.” Could this be indicative of the direction the new government was to take? Blind-siding the people at EDSA, strategic partners, Enrile and the RAM boys? Vice President Salvador Laurel and the Unido Political Party? The newly installed president, a sworn party member?
Both aforementioned pillars of EDSA – the reformist armed component and the political foundation of her civil society – were eventually marginalized from governance and dusted as footnotes of history. Was there not a movement to declare saint-hood for the mother of EDSA? Absent Enrile/ RAM forces, an interminable period would have occurred. Sans Laurel’s Unido, the “yellows” would have been orphaned a viable/elective platform. Stinging rebuke and righting does blossom in the polemics of historical judgement.