The spirit is both little willing and weak
NO ONE I know is as possessed by the spirit of EDSA as Tito Caluag. Father Tito front-lined at EDSA then and front-lines for it now, fighting to transform it from mere spirit into an active culture.
Indeed, to all intents and purposes, EDSA has been left where it happened and is now merely commemorated. I feel some guilt for that myself.
In fact I was at EDSA only as a visitor, not as a vigil-keeper. I was editing the newly revived Manila Times, the preeminent daily that, along with its fellows, had lain entombed since 21 September 1972, when Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law. Once I had put the paper to bed, I went out to EDSA for a feel of the living warmth of the great mass collected there in a vigil for freedom.
The Times (whose tragic affair with me is another story), not unlike the nation reborn at EDSA, has itself lost its bearings in the course of being passed from hand to hand.
Until Father Tito came conscience pricking, I had been at best an EDSA commemorator myself, and not even a faithful one. And so I have joined him, grateful for a chance at redemption, going around imparting the lessons of EDSA in hopes that they will not remain unlived.
Our ambitious idea, as set down in a sort of guiding précis, lest we forget again, is to help keep the spirit not simply burning, but burning “in the consciousness of the Filipino so that whatever he or she thinks, says, and does as a citizen becomes both inspired and informed by it.
“Such thought, word, and deed need not be strictly circumscribed by EDSA; rather, they should turn on the moral courage and philosophy that drove it; edsa becomes, in other words, a constant perspective and in time a culture in itself.”
Reasons abound for the plucking why it is critical to undertake the effort now – in fact, the undertaking chooses no moment; in any case, as the précis continues, the following three should make for a forceful enough rationale:
“For all its great potency for compelling the correction of urgent wrongs and, over the longer haul, for advancing the cause of nationhood, the spirit of EDSA seems today, not even a generation since its original moment, both little-willing and weak; indeed, for those too young to have taken part in the historic vigil or yet unborn, it’s merely a vague sense, if not a useless one altogether;
“In the meantime, scarce achievement has been made, if at all, on the order of such genuine reform as EDSA was hoped to bring; for one thing, patronage remains the nation’s operating mother culture; thus, resources and opportunities remain under monopolistic control; and
“Patron-and-client being the only game in town, the poor, with nothing to play with in the first place, are shut out from any opportunity to improve themselves and thus left even more fatalistic than they have ever been.”
The publics targeted for the campaign:
(1) Those who took part in EDSA but have lived it for just that one moment, and who have since revisited it only in their memory – like me, they need some conscience pricking;
(2) Those who could not have taken part, being unborn or too young yet – they need educating; and
(3) Those who did not take part because they chose to be on the opposite side – they need enlightening.
For platforms, campuses (auditoriums, the classroom itself) and their extensions – student and youth forums outside – are the first choice. After all, the obviously all-important audiences are the young – they who shall inherit this patch of earth.
EDSA should not be kept as one isolated moment, a single explosion of popular power culminating from a buildup over 14 years of sentiments provoked by one lousy dictator.It has to be put in the context of the nation’s history, the nation’s biography, the nation’s life story. Unless appreciated in that light, the spirit of EDSA will not acquire the flesh and the blood and the breath required of life to enable it to be lived, generation after generation, in one unending revolution.
And, finally, to anyone who remains disturbed still by misgivings about the need for all that: Think alone of the nine years we had to endure under Gloria Arroyo and the monstrous fallout that has come down, and is yet to come down, upon us.
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