25 February 1986

25 February is a special day in the Philippines. 36 years ago, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos in different walks in life came to arms and decided that the Marcoses’ 20-year dictatorship has to end.

Ferdinand Marcos won the 1986 presidential elections against Corazon Aquino, the wife of the late Ninoy Aquino. They won it after rampant vote-buying and tampering of election results just like how they did in the previous elections. Only this time, the Marcoses won’t be staying in power any longer.

Due to the discontent of the masses and many influential individuals and groups, it sparked revolution in EDSA which started on the 22nd of February 1986 until the 25th, which at the end lead to the Marcoses hastily fleeing to Hawaii carrying some millions of dollars and jewelry in tow. Just a miniscule fraction of the ill-gotten fortune that the Marcos family amassed during their regime, the whole of which they still hold to this day. Ferdinand Marcos died a few years later but his legacy lives on to this day.

36 years ago, The people of the Philippines ousted it’s dictator and the world praised them for it. They are now free to make their own choices in this free country that they won themselves. Yet 36 years later, somehow the dictator’s son, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is now running for president of the very same country they bled dry. They have a very good chance to win too, if you believe the surveys.

Today is the year 2022 as I write this. The presidential election is one month from now. The biggest candidates are just two people - VP Leni Robredo and Bong Bong Marcos Jr. The masses are in the larger part divided between the two. Each side seem to believe their own version of history at that time. Those that support Marcos think that the Marcos regime was the golden age of the Philippines. The rest thinks it was the start of it’s downfall. Politics divides people due to their differing opinions and that’s normal. But in this case, the Filipino people is divided by facts don’t we? Why is that?

I on the other hand, am living on the sidelines for all my life. I considered myself to love the stories of great people over the history and yet I knew little my own country’s history during the Martial Law. The earlier paragraph I wrote only came from the Wikipedia article I just read about the EDSA revolution. I wasn’t born in that era; Apparently that makes my opinions about what took place at that time irrelevant according to BBM loyalists. Who looks into history to learn from ther past mistakes, right? Let’s just rewrite our history to be something that serves us well. I say all this, but it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t do anything about the learning part.

On the 25th of February 2022, something significant happened to my life. A turning point you could say. It made me reflect on the days I spent only to realize how much time I wasted. Though I try to do well as I live, I am not a brilliant individual, nor intelligent, nor charismatic. I’ve seen those kind of people and I’m confident in saying that I’m the furthest thing to them. But I can make a sincere effort to be a better Filipino starting with reading about the history if my country, The Philippines. Not the fabricated history that the Marcoses wrote to serve themselves.

I think that if enough of common people like me makes a serious effort towards this, to start giving a shit about what really happened back then instead of building our own version of history inside our heads from a collage of misinformation in unmanaged troll-farm infested social media sites that’s specifically targetted to fool, brainwash, and prey on people like us, then we will be living in a country of actual people who decide for their own future and their children. That’s the true golden age of the Philippines that I long for.

As for the “turning point” of my life, I don’t even know where to start. Or when to start for that matter. This is a very personal matter to me and my family so I would rather keep it to myself for now. I might figure out a good way to share this story in this blog in the future. But for now, I take the first step of my journey.