"Where Were You When People Power Was Real?"
The Trillion Peso March Part 3 was announced for February 25. Kiko Aquino Dee spoke with civility, measured tone: all protest groups welcome, as long as they refrained from calls for violence, avoided urging the armed forces, and respected the sanctity of elected power. On paper, it sounded democratic, inclusive, safe. But the streets remember differently.
A sacred date, etched in the sweat, blood, and barricades of a people who would not bow to tyranny, is now declared a no-rally zone. Slogans that once shook the walls of Malacañang are forbidden. “Sedition,” they whisper. Sedition, as if speaking truth to power is a crime. And suddenly, the careful admonitions of modern organizers are offered as wisdom.
Where were these voices when the streets ran with fear and fury alike?
The digital landscape is dominated by state actors, by PR campaigns, by the polished, sanitized spin of those who prefer optics over struggle. Criticism of one man, one family, one dynasty—and everyone recoils. Yet where was the same “care” when protesters faced water cannons, truncheons, and tear gas? When hospital emergency rooms overflowed with the injured from the four days of February 1986? When BAYAN had to fight year after year just for a permit to voice dissent during the State of the Nation Address (SONA)?
Words without action are cheap. Marching in shoes unscathed by fear, watching a sanitized stage performance of People Power—it becomes theater, veneration without understanding, spectacle without courage. The word change is cherished; the work, risk, and sacrifice that demand it are ignored. Opportunism sits comfortably in polite applause.
The first People Power toppled thieves, liars, murderers. Ferdinand Marcos was ousted, Corazon Aquino assumed office, and the streets bore witness to a nation’s collective courage. Yet today, some ask why Kiko Aquino Dee avoids holding Marcos accountable in the narrative of EDSA@40. They point to the stolen wealth, the unreturned plunder, the violence, the impunity. And the question lingers: is BBM truly “clean”? Is Sara untouchable? The slap to the people’s face echoes even in 2026.
History does not lie. Both Marcos and Duterte represent the same corrosion: corruption, abuse, disregard for life, and the oppression of ordinary citizens. Wanting decent wages, regular work, affordable goods, functional healthcare, modern transport, sustainable agriculture, land reform, clean housing, and a livable environment—these are not radical ideals. These are survival, dignity, common sense. Yet in polite discourse, these are labeled “leftist idealism.” It is an insult to those who sweated in the streets so that such demands could even be voiced.
And the modern organizers, cautious and careful, may not see that People Power was never meant to be polite. It was risk, it was sweat, it was courage threaded with fear. It demanded facing authorities armed with more than PR—they faced truncheons, tear gas, and the threat of death. Anything less is theater. Anything less is performative. Anything less is opportunism dressed as patriotism.
So as the march approaches, the streets remember. They remember who bled for freedom, who stood when every police formation, every armored vehicle, every cannon of tear gas tried to silence the people. They remember the courage that made the first People Power real. And they watch, quietly, skeptically, the marchers of today: who walks with the fire, and who walks politely in shoes that have never felt the asphalt under a tyrant’s gaze.
History, as always, will remember.