TARLAC, Philippines – The yellow crowd who came to this once-formidable hacienda on the eve of the anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution had grayed. It was 39 long years ago, after all, when their young and reckless selves took to the barricades to bring down a dictator.
And today, not only is the dictator’s son president, he has also muted the commemoration of that revolt.
“This is a reunion of sorts,” quipped Rapa Lopa in his welcome remarks on Monday, February 24, at the reopening of the Aquino museum and launch of the book PNoy: A Filipino. “It’s good to see two generations of Cabinet secretaries,” said the nephew of former president Cory Aquino, referring to those who had served the two Aquino presidents: Cory and her son Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
The Aquinos’ two former justice secretaries were present — Franklin Drilon and Leila de Lima — and so were Jose “Ping” de Jesus, who had served both mother and son as public works secretary and transportation chief, respectively; Senen Bacani, who was Cory Aquino’s agriculture secretary; and Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, who had been Noynoy Aquino’s presidential adviser on food security and agriculture modernization.
Shut down during the pandemic, the refurbished museum that was reopened on Monday houses the nation’s most remarkable moments and symbols of power — emanating from the streets and the state — in nearly half a century.
It is uncanny how the Marcos dictatorship is shown in one room — a replica of Ninoy Aquino’s prison cell in Fort Bonifacio, his diaries, the tools he used to smuggle notes to the outside world (such as candy wrappers and a water thermos), his eloquent speeches that at once denounced and poked fun at Ferdinand E. Marcos, the massive street protests in Manila, and the vibrant foreign press coverage of those tumultuous times.
A turn to the other corner illustrates, in images both jarring and somber, the beginning of Marcos’ fall — Ninoy’s bloodied clothes after his 1983 assassination, the passport and bag he had used to travel from Boston to Manila, the long grieving lines to his wake and the endless march at his funeral, and the loud and huge protests that followed.
And then on a wall at the next turn hangs a frame containing the worn-out first signatures, that turned to more than a million, that convinced Cory to run against Marcos in February 1986 — inspiring droves to join her campaign rallies, flashing the L sign, tying yellow ribbons on gates and trees, throwing yellow confetti, and encamping on EDSA for four days to mount what would be the world’s first yellow revolution.
Imperfect democracy
Malaya’s front-page on February 25, 1985, which shows Cory at EDSA on February 25, 1986, is finally displayed at the museum. It’s the ultimate proof to dispel the lie by critics that she was never at EDSA during those days, Lopa said.
At a time when “truth is undermined and history is rewritten,” he stressed, “we need to show that while [EDSA’s] brand of democracy was not perfect, it worked.”
It’s what eventually convinced Noynoy Aquino to agree to a book about his presidency.
The former president who took office in 2010 and stepped down in 2016, had frowned upon suggestions, however bare, that a book should be written about his “legacy,” recalled veteran newspaper editor Thelma Sioson San Juan, who edited the book that was project-managed by former Inquirer Malacañang reporter Nikko Dizon and published by the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation.
“The presidency was never about him,” San Juan said. “It was never about his place in history.”
But Rodrigo Duterte won in 2016 on the back of a ferocious campaign against Aquino and his administration that mocked the latter’s leadership and the EDSA liberal ideals that marked it. Change is coming, Duterte had vowed, as his social media army bashed his predecessor.
Three years into the Duterte presidency, in 2019, Aquino relented and told San Juan at a dinner party with friends that he did want a book, after all. Maybe because he saw it for himself how the truth about his term was being twisted, she said. But the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown happened, “and he left us in 2021.” The former president died on June 24, 2021 due to various illnesses at the age of 61.
Gil Nartea, who was Aquino’s official photographer, put together the coffee table book of what he described as his boss’ “unguarded moments.” Nartea said he spent practically seven days a week with Aquino in the six years he was in Malacañang. He said he was witness to his various moods, unofficial activities such as fooling around with his nephews, Joshua and Bimby (sons of sister Kris Aquino), shopping, spending time with girlfriends.
“Even in the current rush to bastardize it, history cannot rob the PNoy administration of a turning point — he successfully challenged China before the international court and asserted the country’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea,” said the book.
“Hindi boses ng mga trolls ito (This is not the voice of trolls),” said San Juan with an empathic tone that you could feel her bitterness toward how the former president and longtime friend had been demonized. – Rappler.com