The Spirit of EDSA DOS

I am the spirit of EDSA DOS, waving a tattered banner on the busy streets. For the past six years, the nation has noted my triumph each January. It is a premature celebration, for the struggle is far from done.

 

            I am the daughter of that first revolt that toppled a dictator, and a cousin to every uprising after my emergence. I am the will of a people that is longing for peace on varying terms. I am the betrayed woman who is still banking on a promise that has been broken over and over. I still hang on to the hopes born during those days in front of that sacred shrine draped with banners calling for a president’s resignation. I stand before you now, dear Filipinos, to remind you of the justice you are so slow to realize. I rise before you amid the recent chaos not to give you comfort but to strip you of the languor that stills your limbs and your conscience.

 

I put on trial today as I did six years ago the true culprits of our disillusionment. I accuse the amnesia of the nation that has robbed so many of the will to act for the people’s welfare.

 

I indict the lust for power and fast profit, and their cousin Ignorance, for their blinding of both officials and constituents to the needs and duties of one another.

 

I accuse as well our system of personality politics that uses artificial titles and showbiz popularity as a means of election as opposed to true, informed, and free suffrage.

 

I do not spare as well Indolence, the laziness that expects the fruits of a democratic state to be given to a people that has not been able to undergo the necessary cultivation to fully enjoy and use these rights and duties.

 

These we spoke against under the fluttering banners and slogans during those days and nights on the highway. What did I come into being for, oh Philippines, but to give you a second chance to have a country to be worthy of admiration and pride not just for 2001, but for many years to come? What did I emerge for, but to displace an inept, corrupt power in hopes of ushering forth a new spring in honest governance? And what did I live for, but for a dream that the Filipino people will be united as a whole in the long road towards humane progress instead of being divided from camp to camp, ideology to ideology, religion to religion, or worse, personality to personality?

 

I am the spirit of EDSA DOS, wandering still down the avenue, seeking to stir the memories of the souls who once marched with me. Am I to lie in vain, oh youth of the Philippines, while our country continues to groan under these ancient chains? Am I to become a mere figment like my mother, and be bound to watch my cousins struggle on with various, but mainly futile results? Or am I to hope that as you read this, one more person should remember the denunciation of an obstruction of justice, and see once again with clarity the vision of a people’s will at work for the good?

 

I trust that my rising has not been in vain, and that we will not only stop to remember, but continue on to move.