A million heroes

Aug. 26, 2013 was a watershed date for all of us much-harassed Filipinos. On that date, close to a million Filipinos nationwide and overseas expressed their disgust at the billions stolen from them, and the complicity of those we trusted to guard our civic interests. These billions were reportedly diverted from projects meant to better our communal lot straight to the pockets of politicians and those who “facilitated” these onerous pilfering of funds.

What made National Heroes Day last Monday unique was that the events and attendance at them, which were centered at the Rizal Park and other public parks and plazas around the country, were generated by social media. Everyone by now knows the story of how musician Ito Rapadas suggested a mass action and how, through Facebook and Twitter, Peachy Bretana pegged the Aug. 26 date. Kudos to both of them for getting the ball rolling.

I do not know Ito but Peachy is a friend of my wife Twink, and Peachy’s son Macky is a student of landscape architecture at the UP, who worked at my office last summer. They both are not political organizers, just ordinary folk, like you and me, caught in a situation they could not stand any longer.

I caught the initial rounds of FB shares and tweets and joined in, like thousands of others in sharing the call. Many took heed and communally agreed on ground rules — the wearing of white, the restraint to be taken about speeches and individual agendas, the fervent wish that the coming together would generate enough crowd sourced civil society impetus to send a clear message to government to right the continuing wrong.

Many knew of the precedent of Martin Luther King and his group’s march to Washington DC on Aug. 28, 1963, coincidentally almost exactly 50 years to the day as our own march. It was not really about numbers but about being able to publicly express dissatisfaction with a systemic flaw in the way our country is run and how our money spent, or misspent.

People were all worried about the weather, as a storm had just passed and another one was spotted on the horizon. Thankfully there was a lull …long enough for the march to push through. I made plans to join the march with my sons. Twink had to cover the event for Channel 5. Like countless others, we all made plans and shared those plans on social media. Preparations and tips for access, transport, parking and emergency options were all shared on line. Everyone came prepared.

My eldest could not make it due to work while our bunso was to join his aunt, uncle and cousins in a group that was going to head to the Quirino Grandstand area. I made plans to park near the DOT building and to head towards the western end from behind the Rizal monument.

I made a decision that my contribution was to document the event. I realized that we needed documentation that we all did indeed show up …of our own volition and in numbers that could not be pooh-poohed by those with agendas compromised by the Pork/PDAF scam.

I was thinking of joining a number of camera groups who were organizing to cover the event at ground level. My choice was to document the march from the air instead, with one of my remotely controlled quadcopters or UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle). To call it a drone is the simplest thing to do, but the term generates negative connotations. It actually is a great tool I use in my design and planning work, as technology has improved so we did not have to rely on expensive airplanes or real helicopters to take aerial shots of development sites.

I arrived early, about 7:30 a.m. with my driver, who acted as my assistant and help me clear areas for taking off and landings. We quickly set up the copter and camera and headed for the Rizal monument. I brought my smallest and lightest rig for ease of set-up and greater safety, although these new AUVs are GPS-enabled and stabilized with gyros so flights are completely controlled.

There were only a few hundred people at the start but I needed to fly and take quick shots just in case it rained. Then it started to shower. I headed back to the parking area and office of a friend nearby to process the first images and post them on Facebook. This was to be able to entice more people to join.

My first postings were quickly shared a few hundred times. In the meanwhile, the showers stopped and we went back to the monument to take some more shots. This time the crowd had grown to cover most of the area and we quickly went up a few times to document the mass protest. I hurried back to my base to post again about mid-morning. These were the pictures that went viral (thousands of shares and likes, hundreds of comments). I did not have time to tweet and the telcos seemed to be overwhelmed by all the texts and tweets as I, and many others, lost signal.

Past mid-day I joined the crowd again, after posting enough images. I looked for my son but they had gone on ahead after lunch. I bumped into a friend or someone I knew about every few meters. The atmosphere was light and upbeat. It reminded me of 1986 (I was in Singapore most of the ‘90s till the first decade of the millennium so I missed out on People Power 2). My brothers and I were among the first to arrive that Friday night (or was it Saturday morning?) after getting Cardinal Sin’s call on Radyo Bombo.

I signed the petition against pork barrel as did tens of thousands of others. My estimate of the actual numbers that came is between 250,000 to a bit more than 300,000. Ongoing construction at the park made it difficult to congregate and the rains made much of the great lawn in front of the monument muddy. I was at the site close to seven hours, and because there were no actual scheduled speeches or performances many came to be counted and left after a few hours. I counted about three waves of people and many sought refuge beneath the trees and in the paved side areas or streets.

A perfect day, weather wise, would have seen many more people congregate en masse. But it really was not about the numbers. It was about communal gathering and communal expression. The eyeball was necessary to prove to ourselves that the problem was real and that social media sharing was not enough to generate the momentum needed for real change.

The aerials helped give people that proof (as did the countless ground shots shared online). Proof that they came when called, heroes to the last one, young and old, with cell phone cameras or aerial drones (I believe there were two other flyers that day). Gadgets, UAVs and social media are just tools or conduits for us to share sentiments, to learn about the issues, to keep in touch with each other …and to take action together. Kudos to all who marched!

I believe that we need to use all our citizens’ resources to stem the floodwaters of corruption, to help those in government sincere in their programs to bring about change, and to create for ourselves an awareness and appreciation that we are one nation that must move forward. To gain ground in this fight we must do so as a nation of heroes willing to stand up for our rights, knowledgeable of the issues, in touch with each other, informed and dangerous.

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com. The aerial images are free for all Filipinos to share. Download them from my Facebook page or e-mail me.