Speaking in Cebu, the President said it was in that city, not in Manila, where the struggle to restore democracy began its “first chapter.”
Doronila characterizes this statement as
"This assertion downgraded the importance of the events at Edsa triggered by the military uprising against the Marcos regime, followed by the civilian mass movement that backed then defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile and then vice chief of staff Fidel Ramos in their breakaway from Marcos, knocking down the latter’s main pillar of support. In other words, the military revolt served as the catalyst of the people power revolution, starting the collapse of the repressive dictatorship that ruled the country for 14 years."
I can't see how he can reach this conclusion, PNOY was relating how his mother after the COMELEC announced that Marcos won the snap elections went to Cebu to start the civil disobedience movement against the dictatorship. Cebu was selected because the opposition regarded it as being the most pro opposition province.
He then followed up with this bizarre paragraph.
Where was Cory Aquino, the President’s mother and leader of the emasculated political opposition, when the turmoil sparked by the military broke out? She was in Cebu, far away from the center of action in military camps at Edsa (Camp Aguinaldo, headquarters of the defense department, and Camp Crame, headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary led by Ramos). She had sought refuge in a religious safe house in Cebu, while the rebel forces and the loyalist segment of the Armed Forces led by Gen. Fabian Ver were locked in a standoff, in the struggle to take control of the Feb. 22-25 revolution, as civilians mobilized by the call of Cardinal Jaime Sin to go to the streets to protect the beleaguered rebel forces flooded Edsa to confront tanks and armored vehicles sent by Ver to storm Camp Crame.He asked where was Cory Aquino when the coup attempt started. The paragraph implies that Cory Aquino fled to Cebu after the start of the coup attempt. When she was in Cebu all that time. Ramos and Enrile did not inform her that they will be attempting a coup and their initial objective was not to install her as the President of the Philippines.
His rant then gets weirder
In his revisionist speech in Cebu, Mr. Aquino said: “Those at Edsa were not the only ones who joined the revolt, right? There are those in Cebu, Davao and so many [other] places.” It’s about time we recognized that Edsa people power involved the struggle of Filipinos all over the country, “not just [those] in Metro Manila,” he told reporters.How can this statement be revisionist. Is Doronila saying that Filipinos in Cebu, Davao and other places did not support the EDSA revolt in Manila?
Then there is this statement
The shift of the venue of the Edsa anniversary celebration to Cebu marked an attempt by the President to emphasize Cory’s role in mobilizing mass protests in unseating Marcos. This interpretation ignores and downgrades the military’s role in unseating Marcos. The speech had no reference to the military as one of the key players of the uprising. It, however, refocused on Cory’s role in Cebu, while the military was hogging the stage in the struggle for control of the revolt between the Enrile-Ramos forces and the loyalist forces. Cory’s refuge in Cebu completely sidelined her from center of the action at Edsa.
Maybe its an attempt by PNOY to emphasize the role of other Filipinos and provinces in the EDSA revolt. Maybe it's an attempt to manage traffic in Manila since there are simultaneous road constructions going on.
And then there is the concluding statement
The credit for this supremacy belongs to the people who filled Edsa to end the dictatorship. We owe them for the restoration of democracy, not the Aquino family.
How can he reach this conclusion when he quotes PNOY earlier in his column saying that
“Those at Edsa were not the only ones who joined the revolt, right? There are those in Cebu, Davao and so many [other] places.”
Wow. Did he even read what he was writing?
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