Have we not told our children enough about the evils of Martial law? Have we taken for granted that they will learn about it by themselves or by osmosis?
If some publications are to be believed, youth groups are leading the movement to elect the dictator’s heir, remorseless and unrepentant. These same groups are shamelessly proclaiming that the Martial Law years were the golden age of this country. They are courting its return.
Watching the sky turn yellow on TV once more, and staring at the re-enactment of the EDSA People Power this morning, I was overcome with vivid images and gut-wrenching memories of an event 30 years ago that changed the lives of those who suffered through the malevolence of dictatorship.
We were there, we saw it all, we suffered it all, and we made possible the end of it all—the abuses, excesses, atrocities, injustice, and debauchery. With clenched fists and courageous defiance, we walked hand-in-hand to break free from the chains of coercion.
And we were successful.
As a nation, we made the dictator flee, shamed and fallen.
At EDSA, we were one.
Can we be one again in passing on the anger and frustration to those who were still unborn or infants when it happened?
Will our youth, our children, clueless and coddled, value what we fought for?
Never again. Is it just a slogan now, 30 years later, for the old and the aging? Will I live to see the grace of EDSA be left unsullied and solid?
I pray we do not allow our heard-earned freedom be shackled: Never Again.
2 comments:
If momeries count, I, my husband and son were there for three successive days; we brought canned goods. It was the dawn of the third day that brought us on our knees in front of our alter at home crying and praying when we heard that they will drop a bomb or plenty of tear gas to the gathered crowd
I was never as scared as I was then. A repeat? NEVER!
NEVER, never, never, never again! But then, again, is this in our hands?
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