THE FIRST TWO DAYS OF EDSA REVOLUTION

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

Nota Bene: Five years ago, I wrote the original version of my historical recollections of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. Since then, new bits of pieces of information have kept on coming out, prompting me to revise the original version to include new details.

The broadened version however enables me to enhance my personal understanding of the EDSA People Power Revolution. No, I don’t buy the argument that we have to romanticize EDSA. There’s no need.

The EDSA People Power Revolution can stand on its own. It is a single major political upheaval that showed our people (or the Filipino people) at our best. There is no need to prove it.

What a Filipino – whether he is a millennial or not – has to do is to understand and accept that Filipinos are capable of transcending their differences to topple a detested dictatorship.

Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Canieso, the affable but complete soldier who took over the Philippine Army immediately after the downfall of the Marcos regime, once told me in an interview that it only required a single shot to convert the ongoing EDSA Revolution into a mayhem. It did not happen for so many reasons; divine intervention could be one.

In the late 1980s, a ranking military officer, in a published commentary on the defunct Philippine Daily Globe newspaper suggested that had the powers-that-be in Malacanang used helicopters to drop tons of stolen money to the throngs of humanity that gathered in EDSA, the result could have been different. It did not happen because the Marcoses were deeply attached to their loot, he said.

Many scenarios were concocted by several minds, including mischievous ones. Historical imagination has been their favorite past time, as they keep on conjuring one image after another. Their sentences usually start with the words "had," "but," and "if only."

My notes about the EDSA Revolution are still with me. I managed to get some glimpses. I also read some existing literature about the EDSA lore. 

I am writing this piece for my new friends, who did not have the chance to read my previous posts and the young people, who hardly know what the EDSA Revolution mean for older guys like me.

My account:

THE EDSA People Power Revolution, according to San Jose Mercury's Lew Simons, an American journalist, was precipitated by what he described as a "half -truth."

Lew Simons was correct. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and his band of RAMboys, led by his chief security, Col. Greg Honasan, had hatched a plan to stage a coup d'etat against the Marcos dictatorship.

On Feb. 19, 1986, the leadership of the Reform the Armed Forces, or RAM, had decided to launch it on the early morning of Feb. 23, which fell on a Sunday.

But when the security men of Trade and Industry Minister Roberto Ongpin were arrested in the early morning of Feb. 22, 1986, Enrile and his group felt that their plan was compromised and uncovered by dictator Ferdinand Marcos and AFP chief of staff Gen. Fabian Ver.

It was time to alter what they had earlier decided.

Enrile and his group had a reason to be apprehensive. Three of the arrested 18 military men comprising Ongpin's security detail were reputedly RAM members.

Upon learning their arrest, Ongpin frantically called up Enrile, who was then sipping coffee with friends at Atrium's lobby in Makati to complain to Enrile that he felt "naked" without his security detail. He claimed he could not leave his house.

Enrile took it differently. He felt Ver and his men had uncovered the details of the planned coup and immediately sounded the alarm to get the coup plotters.

The RAMboys had at least two options: disperse and go their separate ways and later get arrested one by one by Marcos minions; or stage a last defense at the Ministry of National Defense building, where Marcos and his men could kill them.

Whichever way, the options appeared bleak. They cancelled the planned coup and decided to stage the holdout at the MND building inside Camp Aguinaldo.

Earlier, at around 4 or 5 am, Enrile discussed with his key people the contents of a speech which they prepared for him to read by noon time of Feb. 23.

If the coup succeeded with dictator Ferdinand Marcos either killed or captured, the plan was to create the National Council for Reconciliation, which would serve as the ruling junta.

There was originally no plan to put Cory Aquino as president. There was only a plan to invite her as one of the members of the ruling junta. 

Of course, Enrile would head it. To be invited to join the junta were prominent people, including the influential Manila Prelate Jaime Cardinal Sin.

Later accounts said Ongpin's security men, who were then jogging inside Fort Bonifacio, were arrested not because of the planned coup.

It was largely because they ventured into a restricted area there. They were caught scaling the fence of the house of Brig. Gen. Artemio Tadiar, a Marcos loyalist general who headed the Philippine Marines.

Even Ver denied later they were arrested. But in some accounts, the cpatured Ongpin's men planned to kill Tadiar.

Ver said they were being “confined” for what he described a briefing about the security areas in Fort Bonifacio. In brief, Enrile and other coup plotters overreacted. They panicked.

Even Ver had his share of blame too. While Honasan and company were fortifying the MND building for what they expected an attack by Marcos forces, Ver did not know what was taking place during the fateful afternoon of February 22, 1986.

He and first lady Imelda Marcos took their own sweet time and attended as principal sponsors of the wedding of Philip Piccio, son of Air Force chief Gen. Vicente Piccio at the Villamor Air Base chapel.

The wedding and its reception overextended, even as developments were fast cascading during that fateful afternoon.

Even though they knew it, Ver's men did not have the courage to tell their boss about the anticipated breakaway of the Enrile-Ramos faction in the defense and military establishment.

Ver later learned it when JPE and Ramos were already holding the historic press conference, where they jointly announced their withdrawal of support from the Marcos regime. That prompted him to leave Pasay City to meet Marcos in Malacanang.

Marcos, for the first time, only had a solid idea about the coup plot, when the Presidential Security Command men arrested Capt. Ricardo Morales, one of the close-in security men of Imelda Marcos, in the early evening of Feb. 22.

Morales was arrested after he tried to spirit out firearms and ammunition from the PSC armory. They were for use by the coup plotters.

Under the coup plan, Honasan and his group were supposed to attack and take over Malacanang and kidnap the first couple and their children. Morales was among the PSC men, who were recruited to join the coup.

Morales, upon interrogation, gave details of the coup plot. An irate Col. Arturo Aruiza, Marcos's military aide de camp, nearly shot him.

It appeared that Morales did not know that the coup plot was earlier cancelled when RAM leaders knew that the plan was compromised.

During those days, they relied on the erratic landline telephone system for communications, as mobile cell phones came much later.

It was an issue of discomfiture for scholars and observers the issues behind Marcos's inability to launch an early attack on Emrile-Ramos forces, who took their last stand at the MND building.

His inability had enabled JPE and Ramos to bid their time and muster multisectoral support that gave rise to what was originally called "People Power."

Ver could not be described as dumb and incompetent either because he was among the first to urge Marcos to give a go-signal for an attack.

But Marcos never approved any attack, as he kept on hoping that Enrile and Ramos, whom he knew very closely, would give up after some cajoling. A political settlement would be a better choice than a military solution.

Even journalists, who stayed at the MND building after the fateful press conference, were told that they could stay at their own peril.

They (or “we” because I was among those journalists who were told about the dangers) were told that they should find ways for their escape because the attack could be lethal.

In fact, we were told that Honasan and his group would fight to the last man down. To their pleasant surprise, many journalists, including foreign mediamen, decided to stay. They were the first to provide the civilian support for the JPE-FVR group.

The Catholic Church-run Radio Veritas covered the press conference in its entirety. It did not stop its coverage henceforth. Many people listened, including the political opposition.

Cory Aquino was in Cebu City to launch the civil disobedience campaign there. She was supposed to go to Davao City the following day, but she had cancelled it upon learning the breakaway in Manila.

Cory stayed in the Carmelite Convent for security reasons. Even Cory was wary of Enrile's intentions until she talked to him over the phone.

Enrile pledged support for her, telling her that he believed she was the legitimate winner in the 1986 "snap" presidential elections.

Manila Prelate Jaime Cardinal Sin went twice to talk over Radio Veritas, urging all Filipinos of various faiths to support Enrile and Ramos, whom he described as "our friends."

Civil society leader Agapito "Butz" Aquino, who later became a senator, spoke over Radio Veritas to rally members of the August 21 Movement (ATOM) to support Enrile-Ramos group.

They were among the first people to arrive at Camp Aguinaldo to form the unprecedented human barricade to protect the military rebel forces.

Resignations followed. Postmaster General Roilo Golez resigned. Supreme Court associate justice Nestor Alampay also resigned. A number of active and retired military officials came to Camp Aguinaldo to express support.

It extended until the early morning of Feb. 23.

Marcos dilly dallied. He refused to order an attack, until it was discovered that no less than US President Ronald Reagan, through various channels at first and himself later on Feb. 23, warned him that any violent attack on those military rebels would lead to Washington's withdrawal of recognition from his government.

Marcos was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. He was in between the dog and the fire hydrant.

Some military and police officials toyed with Ver, as they quietly disobeyed his orders for them to disperse the groups of people, who later became a multitude around Camp Aguinaldo.

The dispersal orders were given on the early morning of Feb. 23.

Metrocom chief Brig. Gen. Prospero Olivas had his disappearing act. Northern Police District chief Brig. Gen. Alfredo Lim said yes but did nothing.

The military rebels later transferred to Camp Crame from Camp Aguinaldo, which they felt was too big to control and defend.

They only had 300 soldiers during the early hours of the breakaway.

Ver organized his crisis management team with Army chief Gen. Josephus Ramas as head. Philippine Marines chief Brig. Gen. Artemio Tadiar disliked Ramas's appointment because of the latter's lack of combat experience.

"Anong gagawin niya (what would he do)?" he loudly protested to Ver.

In the afternoon of Feb. 23, Tadiar led a Marines contingent to attack Camp Crame, but they were stopped by nuns with rosaries in their hands, and people, who gave them flowers, sandwiches, and bottles of soda drinks.

They retreated. No violent confrontation happened.

Meanwhile, Reagan made it known he was against any violent resolution of the impasse, virtually tying Marcos hands for any attack.

More military men defected to the military forces. The likes of ISAFP chief Brig. Gen. Fidel Singson, Phil. Navy Commodore Tagumpay Jardiniano, among others, found themselves in the rebel camp.

At that point, the Radio Veritas was successfully giving an account of the political crisis. Ver was already thinking to destroy Radio Veritas.

The order came to the lap of Brig. Gen. Antonio Palafox, a notorious Marcos loyalist general. He had to gather the men to implement the order.