“It is enough that we continue to have problems with illegal drugs around the country, but with the presence of firearms in the hands of criminal syndicates, we will continue to have violent incidents nationwide”
A lot has been said about the 37th anniversary of the so-called “People Power Revolution,’, mostly from the “Yellows,” so much so that when President Marcos Jr. extended his hand for reconciliation with his political enemies, his critics demanded an atonement.
What they called “atonement” was for BBM to apologize for so many atrocities and their alleged ill-gotten wealth.
The truth of the matter, Santa Banana, is the anti-Marcos media and the “Yellows” had romanticized, scented and blown out of proportion the gathering then of a little more than half a million people composed of students, priests, nuns and civil society from the ABC categories of people from Metro Manila.
They gathered at a stretch of EDSA from Feb 22 to 25 before Corty Aquino was sworn in by Senior Supreme Court Associate Justice Claudio Teehankee Sr. as the new President of the country at Club Filipino in San Juan, on the same day that President Marcos was sworn in by Chief Justice Ramon Aquino in Malacanang.
That was the culmination of the three-day breakaway of then National Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and then Col. Gringo Honasan and later on by Fidel V. Ramos, then chief of the Constabulary which eventually became the Integrated National Police, with the Reform the Armed Forces Movement of Enrile and Honasan.
The truth of the matter, the so-called breakaway of Enrile, Ramos and Honasan was not a breakaway from Marcos Sr, but a breakaway of the RAM from then General Fabian Ver, who was at the time the AFP chief of staff.
This was, in fact, revealed to me by Enrile after he and Gringo found out that Ver was forming his own military and civilian junta in the event Marcos Sr. died.
Marcos Sr. was at that time sick with lupus.
In fact, Ver then had his two sons, both colonels, detailed to two strategic positions of the AFP. One was the chief of the PSG or Presidential Security Guard and the other, head of the armored division.
During that breakaway, when President Marcos Sr. called up Enrile to ask why they broke away, my gulay, Enrile, told FEM the reason.
BBM knew about this because it was he who answered the phone call from Enrile.
Enrile told FEM the reason why he, Ramos and Honasan broke away, that it was not aimed at Marcos Sr. but at Ver and the AFP.
If the truth must be told about the so-called EDSA 1 or “People Power Revolution,” it was a gathering of a little more than half a million people called upon by then Cardinal Sin in protest against what they perceived was fraud-marred snap elections.
The US government had wanted to save Marcos Sr. from the mob that night, which jumped over the fence of the Palace and ransacked it after the departure of FEM.
Oh yes, when the American helicopter had the Marcos family ferried to safety, Marcos Sr. wanted to go to Paoay in Ilocos Norte to make his last stand against the forces of Cory Aquino.
But Cory pleaded with the Americans not to accept FEM’s request. It could develop into a civil war, Cory, the new President told the Americans.
Thus, the Americans took the Marcos family to Clark, and then to Hickam Air Base in Honolulu. That is the real story of the so-called “ouster” of FEM and his eventual exile.
It was the Yellow press and Western press that romanticized the so-called People Power Revolution, which was neither “people power” nor a “revolution.”
In the first place, the gathering at EDSA the night before Cory Aquino was made President was only a gathering of a little over half a million, considering the population of the country then was 18 million.
Neither was it a revolution because a revolution connotes an overthrow of a monarchy as a form of government like the Philippine and American revolutions.
It was simply a change of regime.
It was all the doing of the Western press, by calling it a bloodless revolution and making Cory Aquino an “icon of democracy” when Cory was just the beneficiary of the three-day break-away of Enrile, Ramos, and Honasan from the AFP, Santa Banana.
I asked Enrile why Cory was proclaimed the President, when I knew from informed sources that Enrile et al. were ready to have a civilian-military junta.
“Well,” JPE said, “ we were not sure whether or not the people would accept the junta and Cory as the face of the opposition.”
Santa Banana, that’s the real story of the so-called “People Power Revolution,’’ which in truth and in fact does not deserve to be commemorated, since it did not change anything, but only a President.
The truth of the matter as far as Cory was concerned was when the breakaway started on Feb 22, Cory was in Cebu, and came back and hid at the Pink Sisters Convent.
On the second day of the breakaway, Cory tried to join the crowd that was gathering at EDSA to protect the breakaway crowd of Enrile, Ramos and the RAM headed by Honasan.
Cory tried to go to EDSA and the nearest she got to join the breakaway group was at the corner of EDSA and Ortigas Avenue where the POEA Building of the Ministry of Labor was located.
Up to now I still wonder how Cory became the “Icon of Democracy.”
As I said, it was a propaganda ploy by the Western Press to glorify the American type of democracy.
That’s the real and factual story of EDSA 1, or the so-called “Bloodless People Power Revolution,” glamorized, romanticized and scented out of proportion for the benefit of the American type of democracy.
And I dare the Yellows and the anti-Marcos groups to contradict it.
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I can agree with Sen. Robin Padilla, the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes to amend the charter, not only on its economic provisions that had become so restrictive and so oppressive to foreign investment, that if the political provisions of the charter must be changed, the party list system must be abolished.
As I said from the start, the party-list system is an anomaly that is incompatible with the Republican form of government we are under.
As I said when the Constitutional delegates were discussing what form of government should be adopted, the Parliamentarians who had wanted to adopt the party-list system, patterned after the German Constitution that had a Parliamentary system the party-list system lost by one vote to the Republican system which we are now under.
Recall that under then strongman Marcos Sr. the country was under a Parliamentary System, with Cesar Virata as Prime Minister.
Informed sources said it was all the doing of Cory Aquino who handpicked the delegates that framed the 1987 charter, since she wanted the communist Left to join the government, friends of her late husband, former Senator Ninoy Aquino.
Thus, we now have a big anomaly of having a party-list system that is incompatible with the Republican form of government.
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For the past weeks, within one week, there had been ambuscades, with one here in Metro Manila, particularly in Pasig.
Most likely, these ambuscades were politically motivated.
This is rather peculiar because it’s not campaign or election season.
Informed sources say most likely the perpetrators belong to a syndicated group of hired criminals.
Members of Congress in fact want to dig deeper into these acts of violence and for the PNP or the police to go after crime syndicates with loose firearms.
That has always been a problem in the country and studies show there are more loose firearms than legalized firearms in the hands of syndicate criminals.
This is a herculean job for the police, and with the great number of loose firearms in the hands of criminals, we will always have incidents, my gulay, like political ambuscades.
It is enough that we continue to have problems with illegal drugs around the country, but with the presence of firearms in the hands of criminal syndicates, we will continue to have violent incidents nationwide.