EDSA is Dead and Empty

It seems but a glimmer now. I was a young, first time mother of a 6 month old infant when the EDSA phenomenon exploded. Everyone I knew went to Edsa. I left my baby behind with my nanay and stood with my husband and the lot in Edsa. It felt like the right thing to do and it was. We deposed a long sitting dictator and we wanted democracy back. The aftermath was no less exciting. The left, the right and those in between coalesced in a dreamy hope of rebuilding the country. The rainbow coalition it was romantically dubbed then. The coalition was not meant to last though. The real intentions surfaced and those who were used to power before martial law lorded it over in the succeeding years... and we have our Filipino diaspora to show for it. our narcopolitics. our corrupt to the core police. our desecrated forests and sick watersheds. our poverty, our 4 million drug addicts.

Today, some people would like to commemorate Edsa and use it as stage to warn against the return to dictatorship. Like we do not have the democratic processes in place to make sure that does not happen. They would like us to believe that the present government which is loved by the people for its genuine propeople programs has taken away their rights...and for effect, their country. What a shrill empty call they make. Today, to this grandma of 3, the promise of Edsa has long died. Instead, the promise of a better country, with no one left behind, burns in my heart. The present leadership has made that possible. and any call that aims to depose that leadership will be nothing more than a pathetic discordant noise.

This post was taken from the Facebook page of TJ Moncupa. To follow her, click on image above.