EDSA at 40 2.25.26

My mom in the bottom left and her siblings, mom, and grandma

Talambuhay Tuesdays: Week 2

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution that toppled the Marcos Sr. dictatorship. Life under Marcos Sr. was a period marred by intense state repression, the disappearance, illegal arrest, detention, torture and extrajudicial killing of thousands of Filipinos; An exponential increase of the country’s foreign debt and theft of billions of pesos from the treasury while everyday Filipino citizens faced worsening poverty. Yet even under these worsening conditions, resistance endured.

Everyday people from all sectors of society built a movement. In schools, farms, factories, parishes, and urban poor communities, people formed organizations and alliances, educated themselves, and these years of collective struggle culminated in millions of Filipinos taking to the streets along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in the Philippines, forcing the Marcos family to flee, swept away by their US-based allies to avoid answering for their crimes.

My mom had been a youth activist with Kabataang Makabayan during the Martial Law era in the Philippines. A tidbit I didn’t learn about her until I took interest in learning more about Philippine history and joined PCHRP. Her direct experience witnessing the targeting of and violence towards political activists was one that etched in her mind how dangerous it was to speak up or take action. Ultimately her Lola (grandma) convinced her to step back from youth organizing to focus on finishing school, that a degree would be her ticket out of the country.

She’s spent the majority of her life outside the Philippines, separated from her friends and siblings, and now that she’s retired and wants to move back, the conditions in the Philippines are worse than when she left, under the rule once again by the Marcos family, more corrupt and morally bankrupt than ever before. Yet the same movement that ousted Marcos Sr. is strengthening every day, both in the Philippines and abroad, and what the EDSA People Power Revolution taught us is that collective action works; That the power to change corrupt and unjust systems lies in the hands of the people ✊🏽