My Thoughts as a Post EDSA Revolution Baby

Coming from what I call “alone time” or singlehood appreciation experience, I decide to make my last stop for the day. To EDSA Shrine! 

I took a jeep from Greenhills lugging Chione around. Not the safest thing to do, but cabs seemed to make a temporary disappearing act that night.

I just had to do what I had to do.

For (what was only!) the 2^nd time in my life, I decide to visit the EDSA shrine. Galle, yes, I’ve been to countless times but the EDSA Shrine? The first time I actually stepped foot on the historical Church was three years ago, when I was so bent on seeing was this place was like since no one really took me there.  

There was just too much hullaballoo over the 25^th anniversary of the People Power Revolution; as we all know, the EDSA Shrine was where the Filipinos congregated in February 25, 1986 to peacefully oust a once-loved dictator.

I stare at the large statue of Mama Mary as soon as I step off the jeepney. I say a little prayer, and proceeded to the staircase going up –somewhere. Out of curiosity, I walked  around ‘til I found a security personnel  and asked him if I could go up.

“Anong gagawin mo sa taas?”

“Gusto ko lang po malaman anong nasa taas. First time ko po.”

“Sige lang,” he said. I hurried up. Siguro maraming umaakyat na rugby boys dito, di kaya?

Looking around, I’m pretty sure there were stations of the cross there. There was what seemed to be a conference/ meeting hall.  I got pretty scared to walk around because it was too dark. I’ll go around the back area some other time. The ghost of the living mumu might just appear. Haha. And I was NOT about to compromise Chione to some thug. Else I might get my boxing skills on. Really.

So there were the bells. I could see Mama Mary’s backside, and the sprawling jungle of cars along EDSA, the buses and pedestrians around Galleria. Cool. I was mesmerized. I sat down on the floor and just looked around. I loved how Robinsons Galleria has improved its façade and its area so that maybe, more people can stare at the EDSA Shrine too, from Starbucks, perhaps? Maybe give some thought and justice to the legacy it stands for. (I am so tempted to place a hashtag, #wishkolang; if only this was a tweet!)

View from the EDSA Shrine Deck

So zooming in on to my point of writing this: what does the EDSA Shrine stand for now? Is this the freedom that the Filipinos always wanted?

I will look forward to the coverage of today’s festivities on replay, probably tonight on TV.  What took place? What are we Filipinos are even talking about? Why is twitter flooded with #EDSA pictures, posts and political hecklers? Was it was worth a day off for the students?

                                 

Sure, I would have wanted a day off too. I would have wanted to drop by the  Shrine today, if only we had free time to witness it. Some people are actually on leave to witness it; well, since my colleagues were present during the “silent” revolution in 1986. (I was probably a 7-week old fetus by that time.)

I wonder who goes to EDSA Shrine to fervently pray for a confused nation like ours.

I wonder, “is this how we define freedom? That we can zoom through EDSA without getting noticed by the MMDA? That we can party til we drop at Republiq, Kyss or Encore without curfews?”

So much for that. But how have your lives improved since then? What would our lives have been if f Ninoy wasn’t assassinated? If Marcos wasn’t ousted? If this Shrine, stood for a memory of something else?

I may live ‘til the People Power’s Golden Anniversary, but I have yet to see how free and improved the Philippines should have been 50 years later. I hope the People Power’s essence shines through. I hope the Shrine will stand out more than being, “the Church fronting Galle.”

So lead us, dearest Lord.