A shameful realization dawned upon me this week. I did not know EDSA history. People started hanging yellow ribbons the day a great woman leader died. In an instant, yellow fever plagued the country. I was nonchalant. Not even bothering to have a peek on the TV to see the news. I was busy beating the deadline for a school assignment. All over the country, everything is about Cory. Everyone tweeted her, everyone facebooked her, everyone blogged about her. Last Monday, thousands of people raised yellow flags, showered yellow confetti, wore yellow clothes, all to pay tribute for a great woman they say as the Mother of Philippine Democracy. I was nonchalant. I was too busy preparing for a two-day activity on vermicomposting. Not even bothering to lift the pages of the PDI across my table that has changed its usual blue heading into yellow. I am amused more than sympathetic. So amused that I had to put a status on my YM that said "yellow fever all over the country". Not that I understand why it is as such, but rather wondering why it is as such. It's amusement and sarcasm at the same time. When Cory started dying and people started praying fervently to their gods that her life be extended or she be spared from further pain, I was fervently praying for a longer patience at work.
I did not know EDSA history. And the reality belittled me. As I was watching some of the scenes during Cory's funeral and saw the Filipinos in fervor, chanting Cory's name, thanking her, adoring her, I started understanding the yellow plague. Cory Aquino was indeed a somebody, a somebody worth dying for, a somebody worthy of the outpouring admiration from people from all walks of life. The President of East Timor waited for 7 hours at the Memorial Park to bid his final farewell to a friend. That for me is humility, one virtue the President claims he acquired from Cory.
In 1986 at 5 years old, I was too young to be bothered by revolutions, insurgencies and uprisings. Pathetic excuse i just realized. It was shameful that i didn't even know what the L sign means. A classmate who claimed he had made Cory smiled twice during her presidency needed to tell me that L stands for Laban. All because i didn't know EDSA history.
Last Tuesday, I got hold of a 1986 issue of The Philippine Star which featured the then-President Cory Aquino's speech in the US State Congress. My landlady has kept it in her magazine rack for 23 years! She was one of those thousands of people in EDSA on that fateful day in 1986.
"Patay kung patay!" she said were the words coming from the mouths of Filipinos who came out into the streets armed with nothing but bruised hearts and wounded souls. Hungry for democracy, angry at oppression. I was so ecstatic as i held a piece of history in its tattered and torn out form. Cory' speech was said to have set the House on fire as the members of the Senate and the house of Representatives "applauded lustily 13 times, with two prolonged standing ovations". This and all other clippings from the EDSA Revolution, first hand accounts from my landlady
Ate Ai, and the information from the world wide web, made me no longer ignoramus of this historical event. But of course, there are still more to know and to learn. I told a college-mate who commented my post in FB about Cory's greatness this:
"siempre we were too young to understand EDSA Revo then. but it aint an excuse. coz as they said, younger generations need to know the country's history so they can help in solving the country's problems. natamaan ako dun, wapaak!" hehe. I got that line when researching for what the abbreviation ATOM stands for. It's August Twenty One Movement! (*grins).
On a lighter note, in addition to the songs written and sung for Cory, i am also dedicating a song for her. It is Coldplay's Yellow. The lyrics are perfect for the country's star that has shone upon us even at her death.
Look at the stars,
Look how they shine for you,
And everything you do,
Yeah they were all yellow,
I came along
I wrote a song for you
And all the things you do
And it was called yellow
So then I took my turn
Oh all the things I've done
And it was all yellow
