Xavier U. students go out to the streets in commemorating EDSA
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews / 25 Feb) — It was a rousing act of remembering the 1986 People Power Revolution as hundreds of students poured out from Xavier University, urging passing vehicles to honk their horns to defend hard-earned freedom and liberties.
Many of the students were born after the 1986 uprising and only read them in books and learned from their classroom lectures, yet they believed that this was the event that won their hard-earned freedom.
“Silbato alang sa demokrasya! Panalipde ang kagawasan (Honk for democracy! Defend freedom,” yelled 18-year-old Albert Vinc Melodia to the vehicles passing Corrales Avenue in front of Xavier University here on Tuesday night.
“The struggle for good governance did not end with EDSA in 1986. This generation will continue the struggle,” Melodia later told MindaNews.
A little farther down the road, 19-year-old agriculture student Godwin Cabanatan, who was
carrying a placard that displayed a Martial Law battle cry (“Makibaka, huwag matakot!”), and his friends lit candles as they urged drivers to join their cause in defending the gains of the EDSA People Power Revolution of 1986, an event that happened 39 years ago long before they were born.
Cabanatan said he and his friends decided to join the rally so people can still remember the EDSA People Power Revolution and reject the attempts to revise history as being peddled by political vloggers and trolls.
“Truth and freedom should be defended by our generation,” he said.
The fervor of the students shouting slogans on top of their voices also moved reporters who were born after EDSA or were too young by then, and thus did not see the millions of people who joined the 1986 uprising.
“I had goose bumps seeing the students exhorting the passing vehicles to honk their horns. Maybe this is how it felt in 1986,” broadcast reporter Menzie Montes of RMN radio network said.
Xavier University marked the 39th anniversary of the People Power Revolution with a “Mass for Democracy” held at the Immaculate Conception Chapel and a “Rosary walk” around the campus.
At the university’s Magis Canteen, students and teachers held “Democracy Hour,” an interactive space that showcased music, poetry and art on EDSA.
Absent, however, were the yellow ribbons. Instead, white ribbons that supposedly symbolized political non-partisanship were tied to every tree in the Jesuit-run university.
In sharp contrast, the city government, which was the bulwark for defiance during the Martial Law years, was quiet on Tuesday.
Ian Fuentes, information officer of the city government, said Mayor Rolando Uy had not issued any directive for a commemoration, unlike in past years, especially in the 1990s, when the city observed EDSA Day with the same significance as Philippine Independence Day.
It is in this city that the late Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., founded the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino (PDP), which later merged with Ninoy Aquino’s Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) to form the anti-Marcos alliance PDP-LABAN.
“Now EDSA is beyond partisan engagement,” said Nestor Banuag Jr, XU’s advocacy officer.
Banuag said the legacy of the 1986 revolution now belongs to the Filipino people, not to any political party. (Froilan Gallardo / MindaNews)
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