On the Fortieth Year: The Busy Road, the Beleaguered Republic,
and the People's Right to Remember
and the People's Right to Remember
In the fortieth year since the Filipino people assembled themselves upon a highway and transformed it into an instrument of sovereignty, a curious development has taken place: the road once consecrated by collective courage has been declared off-limits to the very citizens whose presence made it historic.
The Trillion Peso March Part 3 has been scheduled for February 25, and its convenors have spoken in the language of procedural civility. All sectors are welcome, they assure the public, provided that there are no calls for violence, no appeals to the armed forces, and no suggestions that unelected bodies assume power. Such statements, rendered in the tone of responsible guardianship, are offered as proof that the lessons of the past have been learned.
Yet the past itself resists such neat containment- as February 25 does not belong to regulation. It belongs to rupture.
An Anniversary gone Contained?
It marks the day when governance by decree—sustained by censorship, intimidation, and the calculated normalization of fear—was finally challenged by a citizenry that had exhausted every avenue of polite petition available within the narrow confines permitted by authoritarian rule. It marks the culmination of years in which constitutional guarantees were suspended in practice if not always in name; when the press was disciplined into silence, assemblies were treated as conspiracies, and dissent was reframed as subversion.
It marks the moment when the Filipino people ceased to be mere spectators to their own dispossession—no longer passive recipients of policy imposed without consultation, nor quiet witnesses to the steady erosion of their political and economic rights—and instead became active participants in the reconstitution of their republic. Upon that highway, sovereignty was not invoked rhetorically but exercised materially, as citizens assumed responsibility for restoring institutions that had been hollowed out by patronage, militarization, and decree.
It marks, in short, the point at which legitimacy ceased to flow downward from entrenched authority and began once more to rise upward from collective will.
And it is precisely on this date—so freighted with the memory of reclaimed agency—that the present administration has chosen to impose an “EDSA no-rally zone,” effectively restricting access to the very site where democratic legitimacy was last renegotiated in full public view.
Thus is the fortieth anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution commemorated by the son of the very dictator whose rule defined governance through the blanket gagging of the press, the criminalization of independent organization, and the systematic suffocation of both individual and collective expression: by blocking the historic highway to those who refuse to treat accountability and justice as negotiable abstractions, or to subordinate historical memory to the conveniences of present authority.
In so doing, the state risks transforming an anniversary of emancipation into an exercise in managed remembrance—permitting celebration while circumscribing its meaning, and honoring participation only insofar as it does not challenge the structures that People Power was once mobilized to confront.
The symbolism is unmistakable. A road made sacred by dissent is rendered inaccessible in the name of order. Slogans once shouted in defense of liberty are now deemed suspect, their utterance shadowed by allegations of sedition. It becomes a tribute to memory that now demands performativism if not silence.
It marks the day when governance by decree—sustained by censorship, intimidation, and the calculated normalization of fear—was finally challenged by a citizenry that had exhausted every avenue of polite petition available within the narrow confines permitted by authoritarian rule. It marks the culmination of years in which constitutional guarantees were suspended in practice if not always in name; when the press was disciplined into silence, assemblies were treated as conspiracies, and dissent was reframed as subversion.
It marks the moment when the Filipino people ceased to be mere spectators to their own dispossession—no longer passive recipients of policy imposed without consultation, nor quiet witnesses to the steady erosion of their political and economic rights—and instead became active participants in the reconstitution of their republic. Upon that highway, sovereignty was not invoked rhetorically but exercised materially, as citizens assumed responsibility for restoring institutions that had been hollowed out by patronage, militarization, and decree.
It marks, in short, the point at which legitimacy ceased to flow downward from entrenched authority and began once more to rise upward from collective will.
And it is precisely on this date—so freighted with the memory of reclaimed agency—that the present administration has chosen to impose an “EDSA no-rally zone,” effectively restricting access to the very site where democratic legitimacy was last renegotiated in full public view.
Thus is the fortieth anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution commemorated by the son of the very dictator whose rule defined governance through the blanket gagging of the press, the criminalization of independent organization, and the systematic suffocation of both individual and collective expression: by blocking the historic highway to those who refuse to treat accountability and justice as negotiable abstractions, or to subordinate historical memory to the conveniences of present authority.
In so doing, the state risks transforming an anniversary of emancipation into an exercise in managed remembrance—permitting celebration while circumscribing its meaning, and honoring participation only insofar as it does not challenge the structures that People Power was once mobilized to confront.
The symbolism is unmistakable. A road made sacred by dissent is rendered inaccessible in the name of order. Slogans once shouted in defense of liberty are now deemed suspect, their utterance shadowed by allegations of sedition. It becomes a tribute to memory that now demands performativism if not silence.
Still, the noise of dissent against the system doesn't stop
In response, various sectors of civil society have resolved to march toward EDSA-Ortigas on February 25—not merely to commemorate the past but to assert the continuing necessity of People Power as a political principle. They argue that it is impossible to remember EDSA without confronting the fascism, corruption, and subservience that characterized the Marcos dictatorship, or without acknowledging the vast quantities of stolen wealth that remain unreturned to the Filipino people.
Questions persist with institutional stubbornness: where is the ₱203 billion in unpaid estate tax owed by the Marcos family? Where are the billions in ill-gotten assets that continue to generate private benefit from public loss? Is Marcos Jr. really serious in resolving that goddamned corruption issue that harmed both his and Duterte's circle? True that the call is "all those involved be held accountable", but in truth- how about the urge to "bombard that corruption-riddled headquarters"? To commemorate EDSA without posing these questions would be to transform history into ceremony and ceremony into performativism without understanding, if not amnesia.
Equally, they contend that the present cannot be detached from the past. Allegations of corruption amounting to billions in public funds, supported by documentary evidence presented in legislative inquiries, have exposed the continuities between the former dictatorship and the current administration. In the logic of political inheritance, "kung ano ang puno, siya ring bunga"—the nature of the tree determines the nature of its fruit.
The declaration of EDSA as a no-rally zone is therefore not merely administrative; it is ideological. It contradicts the foundational premise of the uprising it purports to honor: that sovereignty resides not in institutions alone but in the organized action of the citizenry. And in speaking of "peaceful assembly" as insisted by authorities, that assembly cannot be meaningfully celebrated by limiting the freedoms that sustain it especially with "permits", Nor can the lessons of EDSA be invoked to justify the suppression of criticism or the narrowing of political alternatives to those sanctioned by entrenched elites.
The fortieth anniversary also arrives amid renewed political maneuverings, in which alliances are assembled and dissolved with an eye toward forthcoming electoral contests. In such an environment, the struggle against corruption risks being reduced to an instrument of campaign strategy—a means of securing office rather than transforming the system that renders corruption profitable.
History offers a cautionary precedent. The events of 1986, and later those of 2001, demonstrated that the mere replacement of leadership at the summit of power does not in itself resolve structural crises. The question confronting the nation is therefore not only who shall govern, but under what system governance shall proceed.
To substitute one occupant for another without altering the conditions that produced both is to mistake rotation for reform. For this reason, those who will assemble on February 25 insist that the work initiated at EDSA remains unfinished. The promises of genuine freedom, democratic accountability, social justice, and equitable development—invoked in the fervor of those four days—have yet to be fully realized.
They march to assert that the commemoration of EDSA must be measured not by ceremonial observance but by substantive progress toward these ends.
They march in the conviction that the true power of the republic resides not in political dynasties, nor in the transactional accommodations of professional politicians, but in the collective capacity of its citizens to demand and enact change.
And they march in the belief that the memory of People Power cannot be confined to anniversaries or appropriated for spectacle.
It must instead be exercised.
Until the promises made upon that highway are fulfilled, the road remains open in principle—whatever barriers may be erected in practice.
In response, various sectors of civil society have resolved to march toward EDSA-Ortigas on February 25—not merely to commemorate the past but to assert the continuing necessity of People Power as a political principle. They argue that it is impossible to remember EDSA without confronting the fascism, corruption, and subservience that characterized the Marcos dictatorship, or without acknowledging the vast quantities of stolen wealth that remain unreturned to the Filipino people.
Questions persist with institutional stubbornness: where is the ₱203 billion in unpaid estate tax owed by the Marcos family? Where are the billions in ill-gotten assets that continue to generate private benefit from public loss? Is Marcos Jr. really serious in resolving that goddamned corruption issue that harmed both his and Duterte's circle? True that the call is "all those involved be held accountable", but in truth- how about the urge to "bombard that corruption-riddled headquarters"? To commemorate EDSA without posing these questions would be to transform history into ceremony and ceremony into performativism without understanding, if not amnesia.
Equally, they contend that the present cannot be detached from the past. Allegations of corruption amounting to billions in public funds, supported by documentary evidence presented in legislative inquiries, have exposed the continuities between the former dictatorship and the current administration. In the logic of political inheritance, "kung ano ang puno, siya ring bunga"—the nature of the tree determines the nature of its fruit.
The declaration of EDSA as a no-rally zone is therefore not merely administrative; it is ideological. It contradicts the foundational premise of the uprising it purports to honor: that sovereignty resides not in institutions alone but in the organized action of the citizenry. And in speaking of "peaceful assembly" as insisted by authorities, that assembly cannot be meaningfully celebrated by limiting the freedoms that sustain it especially with "permits", Nor can the lessons of EDSA be invoked to justify the suppression of criticism or the narrowing of political alternatives to those sanctioned by entrenched elites.
The fortieth anniversary also arrives amid renewed political maneuverings, in which alliances are assembled and dissolved with an eye toward forthcoming electoral contests. In such an environment, the struggle against corruption risks being reduced to an instrument of campaign strategy—a means of securing office rather than transforming the system that renders corruption profitable.
History offers a cautionary precedent. The events of 1986, and later those of 2001, demonstrated that the mere replacement of leadership at the summit of power does not in itself resolve structural crises. The question confronting the nation is therefore not only who shall govern, but under what system governance shall proceed.
To substitute one occupant for another without altering the conditions that produced both is to mistake rotation for reform. For this reason, those who will assemble on February 25 insist that the work initiated at EDSA remains unfinished. The promises of genuine freedom, democratic accountability, social justice, and equitable development—invoked in the fervor of those four days—have yet to be fully realized.
They march to assert that the commemoration of EDSA must be measured not by ceremonial observance but by substantive progress toward these ends.
They march in the conviction that the true power of the republic resides not in political dynasties, nor in the transactional accommodations of professional politicians, but in the collective capacity of its citizens to demand and enact change.
And they march in the belief that the memory of People Power cannot be confined to anniversaries or appropriated for spectacle.
It must instead be exercised.
Until the promises made upon that highway are fulfilled, the road remains open in principle—whatever barriers may be erected in practice.