GMA leads rites to mark 16th year of Marcos fall

President Arroyo led yesterday the 16th anniversary celebration of the EDSA I people power uprising that toppled the Marcos dictatorship in 1986.

Amid tight security, Mrs. Arroyo and her Cabinet joined by former presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos lit a freedom torch at the steps of Our Lady of Peace Chapel on EDSA in Quezon City, where the protests took place, to honor the unnamed heroes of that revolt.

The President reiterated that her administration’s main fight was against poverty, and the battlefield for any new EDSA mass movement was not in the streets but in the homes of thousands of impoverished Filipinos.

Meanwhile, Marcos loyalists described yesterday as a "senseless undertaking" the yearly celebration of the EDSA I anniversary.

Cherry Cobarrubias, spokeswoman for former first lady Imelda Romualdez-Marcos, said EDSA I was not a revolt of the Filipino people but of the minority oligarchs in tandem with discontented military rightists and the communists.

"This mob rule known to Filipinos as EDSA I is full of hypocrisy and pretensions," she said. "It was a revolt of the few oligarchs like Cory Aquino and discontented military rightists like Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos, and the leftists."

In her 30-minute speech marking the end of the day’s EDSA I anniversary celebrations, Mrs. Arroyo also promised to be more patient in listening to people, whether they be from the ranks of her supporters, to the left and the mainstream opposition.

"The enemy of this new people power won’t be regimes, it will be poverty," she said. "People power must be transformed into a force for nation building."

Surveying the sparse crowd, Mrs. Arroyo noted that there were many "placard-bearing" urban poor representatives at the People Power Monument, who she said were among the 150,000 families who have benefited from her year-old administration’s urban land reform program.

"Sixteen years after EDSA I, we still look with deep sadness at the plight of the poor, some of whom unfortunately and understandably, have started to believe that EDSA hasn’t really mattered much to them," she said.

She also said that the spirit of the first two EDSAs lives, "but it has to be deepened and transformed if it is to live for generations to come."

Mrs. Arroyo said the real EDSA III won’t be as dramatic as the first two EDSAs. "There probably won’t be a date when this real EDSA will be commemorated. Its heroes will probably be anonymous. Its struggle can’t be undertaken in days, but in years, even decades," she added.

Furthermore, she said, the battlefield won’t be in EDSA nor on Mendiola, "but in the country’s shanty areas, in the poorest farms of our country. Yes, even in Basilan where the ultimate enemy is not the Abu Sayyaf but poverty."

Cobarrubias, on the other hand, said Filipinos continue to be divided because the government remains focused on "mob rule" and has "buried" democracy in the country.

"EDSA I did not bring back democracy," she said "Those behind it actually managed to bury democracy in our country because they rule on vengeance and based on systems that only fit their own interests."

Cobarrubias said the late President Ferdinand Marcos should be credited for the bloodless revolution on Feb. 22-25, 1986 because he did not use force to disperse thousands of people who had camped out at EDSA between Camps Aguinaldo and Crame in Quezon City.

"Marcos could have easily pulverized them because he was still in control of the military at that time," she said. "But instead of doing that he chose to face the situation with calm and peace. He did not voluntarily leave the country, but was abducted by the Americans (who) brought him to Hawaii."

The majority of Filipinos remain in "abject poverty" 16 years after Mr. Marcos was overthrown by EDSA I, she added.

Finding no reason to really celebrate, militant groups chose not to take part in yesterday’s EDSA I festivities.

Instead, they tried to banish the negative shadow cast over the entire "civil society" movement, which played a vital role in the overthrow of President Joseph Estrada last year.

Militant groups Kilusan Tungo sa Pambansang Tangkilikan (KATAPAT), Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME), and National Economic Protectionism Association (NEPA) pressed yesterday the Caucus of Development for NGO Networks (Code-NGO) to explain their involvement in the PEACE bonds deal. – Jose Rodel Clapano, Marichu Villanueva, Katherine Adraneda