Mei Manuel25 years ago, the Philippines wanted to have its freedom over a dictator who has amassed not only almost everything the budget allotted for the people but also all her rights. In this day, 25 years ago, the Filipinos got what they have been fighting for without the need of a bloodshed. The dictator and his family fled, the Filipinos got their freedom and with it, they have gotten a president who not only made her name as the first female president in Asia, but the symbolic icon that will lead her to be known as one of the stars of this historic moment.
But now, 25 years later, what exactly changed after that moment?
Well, there has been some failed remakes of the revolution which led to the downfall of another president and reinstallation of the second female president, the next was just a fiasco as it tried to force the same female president to step down as she has done tons of things questionable and somewhat an uncanny similarity of what the dictator did. The essence of the whole thing was pretty much distorted with these remakes as the younger generation no longer knew and understood what EDSA meant. And pretty much, the feeling was never really the same.
Personally speaking, the event as it is is something I can easily say is a part of history as I have never taken part of it. But hearing stories about it and seeing photos of powerful the dictator was back in those days, one can pretty much agree that yes, we are free. There are pros and cons when the dictator was in power; he made tons of infrastructure and kick started some of the source of transportation as the roads were created in important installations, plus everything seems so cheap back then but of course the cons was his family has supposably taken parts of the country’s budget for their own. After that… well, the people are trying to get those money back… so far, there has been little progress… what do you expect? its already been years since it happened and the guy who supposably masterminded it all has passed on. His cronies as they say? Well, the idea of being stuck in jail and giving back what they gotten from the 21 years doesnt really sound nice.
In the end, the years flew by… how can we, the younger generation try and understand how symbolic the event is? In my opinion, understanding what our parents had experienced that day and realizing that although EDSA has been remade 2 more times, the first one was the one that gave us our freedom… We should all never forget that