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Grow up,anti-FM forces told

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Sen. Francisco Tatad lamented yesterday that 14 years after the EDSA people power revolt, the country has not moved on beyond former President Ferdinand Marcos.

"We need to grow up. We need to see that our history does not begin or end with Marcos, and that there are infinitely higher and nobler things than that kind of politics, that Philippine society is infinitely larger than those who want to make Marcos the center of their lives," he said.

The late dictator's former information minister also decried that national agenda has not replaced personal agenda and that no new leader or idea has arrived to teach the nation new things.

"We are left to suffer villains whom our courts cannot convict, 'heroes' with unexamined claims and still unexamined lives, and the silly idea that we must live our lives forever, for or against Marcos," Tatad said.

His colleagues at the Senate, however, expressed divergent views on the four-day revolt in 1986.

Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. said yesterday that he would attend the EDSA revolution commemoration today.

He said that the EDSA revolution showed to the whole world the ability of Filipinos to change "with the least bloodshed, in a most peaceful way possible," a leader who has lost moral authority.

"It was a proud and stirring moment," he said of the February revolt, one of whose anthems was the very same campaign jingle used when his father ran and won the presidency in the '50s, "Mambo Magsaysay."

Sen. Raul Roco, meanwhile, said he would not be attending the commemoration "because it has become too contrived."

He said that he attended only the first EDSA anniversary, and has since been commemorating the event privately.

"I will always remember EDSA. It was a moment of valor," Roco added.

Finally, Sen. Gregorio Honasan, one of the main players in the uprising, called on Filipinos to commemorate EDSA "quietly and with a lot of introspection so we'd know as one nation whether EDSA still remains in our hearts and continues to guide us in our quest for democracy and progress."

"Let us keep on reminding ourselves of the EDSA experience. Let us not allow the true spirit and real meaning of EDSA to wane and much more be maligned," he added. --

EDSA

FRANCISCO TATAD

GREGORIO HONASAN

MAMBO MAGSAYSAY

MARCOS

PRESIDENT FERDINAND

RAMON MAGSAYSAY JR.

RAUL ROCO

ROCO

TATAD

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