THE Palace explained that Edsa rites henceforth shall be modest. And the theme will be people power moving on. I agree 100 percent.
The reason is that I opposed right at the start the public government celebration of a private act of courage and conviction—albeit it on a mass scale—staged against the government. Each of the people who went to Edsa expected to stand there alone against the government.
I wanted, instead, a gigantic cathedral, like near the 100-year-old Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, still unfinished that would take as long to complete, out of private contributions, as it took the Filipino people to wake up from their mental and moral lethargy and destroy the dictatorship. (Remember US Sen. Mike Mansfield apt description of them during martial law, “40 million cowards and one son of a bitch”.)
Never leave to the future, I said, the safekeeping of the memory of what the past achieved. Generations come and go, with progressively diminishing capacity.
Edsa is best commemorated—and the event celebrated—in the heart. That is the only imperishable location for a fitting commemoration.
In the event, I was proved right.
The first Edsa celebration was attended more by the losers at Edsa seeking reconciliation, than the vastly larger winners thereat who were resting on their laurels at home after a job perilously and well done.
Edsa should be commemorated quietly, like Passover, after which it was modeled, because Cory echoed Moses—
when she told Pharaoh,
“Let my people go.”
I also agree
that the theme should be,
“Edsa moving on.”
This, to ensure by preemptive criticism and vigorous opposition that another Edsa will not be needed again. Moving on cannot mean forgetting. You cannot move on if you do not know where you came from so you know where you are headed. That is not moving on. That is just wandering in the desert, after worshiping a calf made of gold. In short, the celebration of Edsa by its devotees must go underground.