Fiesta.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Conrado de Quiros

ARCHBISHOP Gaudencio Rosales has a complaint. That is that this country has never learned from Edsa. "Edsa was a call for change and repentance. Unfortunately, like most things we do, we have made Edsa only a fiesta." All of 18 years have not been enough for us to free ourselves from the evils of the Marcos dictatorship. That is because we have not learned the discipline and responsibility that come with freedom.

The complaint is valid enough. But the first question is: Who was there to teach the lesson?

As I suggested last Wednesday, the post-Edsa government taught only a lesson in how not to build a new world. If we have not learned the discipline and responsibility that come with freedom, it is no great thanks to our leaders who have shown a largely negative example. Edsa was a historic opportunity to turn things around, to punish the evildoers, to right wrongs, to do the exact opposite of what Marcos did. To wreak the "personal revenge," as Jose Borje puts it, of putting the kids in school, ridding the streets of beggars and bringing back song and laughter to the mouths of the oppressed. Unleashing vigilantes and cultists on the populace, whetting the appetites of new cronies, and rewarding the former torturers and punishing the tortured anew do not offer lessons in the discipline and responsibility that come with freedom.

The second question is even more important, though far more subtle. That question is: What is the lesson to begin with?

Our issue of the Inquirer last Thursday which carried the headline of Rosales' complaint fortuitously suggests that Edsa's lesson was flawed. Below the story is a huge picture showing Corazon Aquino, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Fidel Ramos flashing the Laban sign. GMA of course was never part of Edsa, I or even II. Ramos was part of the first Edsa largely by accident. He was Marcos' PC chief and though he fell out of grace for showing less than canine devotion to his boss than Fabian Ver et al., he never figured in the campaign against Marcos. He fell in league with RAM also largely by accident. And if it weren't for the legions that massed at Edsa, he would not now be claiming a third of the franchise of Edsa. The other two claimants being Cory and Jaime Cardinal Sin.