A POST Edsa One review of events leading to the departure of President Ferdinand Marcos, poses several questions. Thirty-three years passing, 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 & 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” had however 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 foretold 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 – 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 be orphaned a viable/elective platform? Stinging rebuke and righting does blossom in the polemics of historical judgement.
