The Edsa People Power revolution comprised the historic four days in February 1986 that resulted in the toppling of Ferdinand E. Marcos’ dictatorship and the return of democracy in the Philippines.
The people’s long struggle was heightened when Marcos imposed martial law in 1972. The assassination in 1983 of the former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., then returning from exile in the United States, triggered mass protests that challenged the dictatorship and eventually pushed his widow, Corazon Aquino, to take on the leadership of the opposition. Marcos declared a snap presidential election on Feb. 9, 1986. The Commission on Elections’ “official” vote count showing him winning led to the walkout of Comelec canvassers bearing ballot boxes—and daily mass demonstrations against the election results. Within days, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel V. Ramos, then defense minister and Armed Forces of the Philippines vice chief of staff, respectively, broke away from the Marcos regime. The call for support aired by Jaime Cardinal Sin rallied more Filipinos to join the thousands upon thousands of people from all walks of life then gathered at Edsa.
The dictator and his family fled Malacañang on Feb. 25, 1986. The peaceful revolt showed the way for other such uprisings around the world.
At the crossroads
Forty years after the Edsa People Power revolution and 54 years after Marcos’ imposition of martial law, the country seems to be at the crossroads, neither here nor there.
True, the dictator was overthrown and the democratic space restored. The warring social and political forces came together in a brief shining moment of mutual interest. But the promise of Edsa remains elusive decades later.
Corruption has become systemic and more flagrant. Social and economic inequality has widened, not narrowed. The human rights violations witnessed during the Marcos dictatorship made a comeback more brutal and terrifying during the Duterte years. Political dynasties are now firmly entrenched, starting in the two highest positions in government.
With all that has been happening in the country, especially with the next presidential election just two years away, the Edsa spirit is being resuscitated by continuing mass actions by various groups and coalitions, including by an organization of Catholic bishops and priests called Clergy for Good Governance (CGG).
The CGG was inspired by the spirit of Gomburza (Gomez, Burgos, Zamora), the three priests who were executed by the Spanish colonial government on Feb. 17, 1872, as well as by the group Gomburza formed on Feb. 17, 1977, by San Jose seminarians and Jesuit scholastics at the Ateneo de Manila Loyola School of Theology, which became the vanguard of church activism during the dark days of martial rule.
Why not a mural?
Last month, in the midst of preparations for the Edsa@40 commemoration, CGG convener Fr. Robert Reyes asked himself what could be done that would become a document after the ceremonies were done. He thought: Why not a mural? Specifically, “a mural that will record events as well as the sentiments and aspirations of the people after 40 years of Edsa”?
Popularly known as the activist “running priest,” Father Robert says: “If we can only just go back to the past, at what happened at Edsa 40 years ago that has value, that has meaning in itself… But more than just the past, we have a very complicated present that we’re going through, and a very amorphous and uncertain future. And that [mural] will lift us up out of this terrible mess that we all are experiencing at this point.”
He adds: “So, a mural is both a document and a statement, and on its own, is all about a dream. It can contain so much symbolically; the symbolism can connote more than what is obvious. It can speak beyond what is immediately seen because it will be pointing toward something that is unseen, something that is unrealized yet, and yet, the scenes are already visible and palpable in the image that the people behold.”
The idea of a mural was initially quite a challenge for Father Robert because he had to find the artists, the funds (for the canvas, frame, paint, and the logistics needed by the artists), as well as the permission for where the mural would be painted and displayed.
But “in such a short time,” he says, he was able to find the artists and two donors who provided the minimum amount needed to get the mural done. He also secured the permission of Fr. Jerome Secillano, the rector of the Edsa Shrine where the mural “Tayo ang People Power: Noon, Ngayon at Bukas” was painted and is now on display.
Past and present
As the concept director, Father Robert did not find it difficult to picture the past. He started with Gomburza, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, and the elements of the revolution against Spain: “Doon ko na lang sinimulan kasi that is of recent memory.”
“Then,” he adds, “my sociopolitical involvement was sparked by the events of martial law, which is really the political context of the Edsa revolution. So, it was not difficult from the history of the Spanish revolution to Edsa, and from Edsa, the 40 years of Edsa, to the present. My memories of the events from Marcos Sr. to Marcos Jr. are very fresh because I was there, I lived through that. And the present is not difficult at all to conceptualize by looking at all the elements that make up the current history of Philippine society and the many sectors involved in the process of change.”
That “past” scenario in the mural was rendered by veteran artist Ted Camahalan. He was a member of Katag (Kabataang Tundo Art Group), which was part of the Kaisahan group of the pioneering social realist artist Papo de Asis. Katag created murals that exposed military atrocities and human rights violations during the Marcos martial law years and even after Ninoy Aquino’s assassination.
For the mural, the image in the middle, instead of a serpent monster like in the Greek mythology, is a three-crocodile-head hydra carrying a vault bursting with paper money. According to Father Robert, it represents all the social ills of our society, primarily the political dynasties.
He states: “It is curious that the three crocodiles have necklaces with a medallion where you can see a word and a symbol. The word ‘Familia’ is written around the medal and in the middle is the Infinity sign. So, Familia Forever—[we already know that it’s the] motto of the dynasties: Family will be here to stay forever!”
“And this was skillfully portrayed and painted by Anthony Jandusay,” he says.
Jandusay is a visual artist and digital creator from Marinduque. He is part of the team of the contemporary artist Rara Carillo’s Black and Yellow Movement, which claims “to bridge the gap between art and advertising, using unique sparks to shape thought-provoking narratives and express authenticity.”
Tomorrow
Father Robert says conceptualizing the third part of the mural, Bukas, the total picture of tomorrow, was a little tricky because of people’s different dreams about the future. So, he asked the artists to help him: “Let’s talk, let’s dream together,” he told them.
His inputs and the artists’ imagination created the combination of Inang Kalikasan (Mother Nature), Maria Makiling and the Sierra Madre rolled into one to represent Inang Bayan (the motherland). It was a beautiful image of the dream—the aspiration for the future. The artwork was rendered by the Zamboanga-born Carillo, who comes from a family of artisans and whose creative practice spans visual arts, advertising, and social advocacy.
Carillo says Father Robert wanted to use art to remind Filipinos of our history—the martyrs who fought for freedom, the injustice that still lingers, and the hope that keeps our nation moving. She adds: “He believes that art can speak to people in ways words alone cannot, and that’s how I became part of the project.”
Two other young artists, Alvergel Frias and Abegail Bulan, did sketches and paintings of the recent floods, the victims of recent tragedies, both natural and man-made. “The most important lesson I learned from the Edsa@40 mural project is that it’s possible to be with God, with the people, and with the country all at the same time without other considerations,” Frias says in Filipino.
Father Robert says the mural is a work in progress as the artists will paint additional images: of the clergy who will be dressed differently as bishops, cardinals, and priests, and of the laity responding to aspirations and dreams about a church that is truly a church of the people and of the poor, a church that is not only comfortable with beautiful liturgies inside air-conditioned spaces but a church who sees itself as one journeying with the people.
At the Shrine
The mural will be kept at the Edsa Shrine upon the rector’s request. Father Robert agrees. “In the first place,” he says, “I owe a debt of gratitude to Cardinal Sin. It is really Cardinal Sin who is the ‘Father of the Edsa Revolution,’ and without him, I think this would not have happened the way it happened—peacefully and meaningfully. So, I’m happy that the mural will stay at the Shrine.”
He concludes: “Beyond the mural finding a home at the Edsa Shrine, it can become a permanent teaching aid, a catechetical document for the Church to remind people of history, of the unfinished struggle for a nation that is still looking for itself, a church involved, a church militant and yet peaceful.”
What was it Aristotle wrote that also evokes the beautiful future that the mural does? “Hope is a waking dream.” CS
Alma Cruz Miclat is a freelance writer and author of the books “Soul Searchers and Dreamers: Artists’ Profiles” and “Soul Searchers and Dreamers, Volume II,” and co-author (with Mario I. Miclat, Maningning Miclat, and Banaue Miclat) of “Beyond the Great Wall: A Family Journal,” which received a National Book Award for biography/autobiography in 2007.
