debunking tiglao  #EDSA #1986

i’m sure rigoberto bobi tiglao has a copy of my EDSA Uno book because he asked katrina for one when she was still with the manila times.  so, really, nakakataas ng kilay at medyo katawa-tawa ang kanyang Five facts about EDSA we didn’t know at the time.  napaka-selective and kind of twisted, in aid of putting down cory and EDSA and / while touching up the images, toning down the martial-law tainted vibes, of enrile and marcos in the time of EDSA.

historical revisionism to the max, with overtones of machismo.  all of thirty-three years later and these guys still can’t stop whining, and their tall tales get even taller.  hindi pa rin nila matanggap na naungusan sila, naisahan sila ni cory, fair and square, in those 10 shining days of the february boycott that saw the blooming of EDSA and the ousting of marcos.  get over it, guys.

TIGLAO:  Cory Aquino had little to do with EDSA 1.

CHAROT.  this is only a variation on enrile’s cory-was-not-even-in-EDSA line, and it’s also not true.  she was there for a while, in person, on the afternoon of day three 24 feb – long enough to pray the our father and sing bayan ko with the crowd in front of POEA  (reported by manila bulletin 25 feb).  thing is, she didn’t even need to make an appearance.

from the start, cory was all over EDSA in spirit – when the people trooped to EDSA they were wearing cory’s colors and waving her flags, and they were still on crony-boycott mode, demanding that marcos resign so cory could take over.

kung hindi kay cory na nilabanan si marcos sa snap election, kung saan dinaya siya ni marcos, kung kaya’t nagprotesta siya sa luneta at buong tapang na iginiit na siya ang tunay na nagwagi sa halalan, sabay tulak ng civil disobedience at crony boycott, na sinakyan nang todo ng mga coryistang sabik sa pagbabago… kung hindi kay cory at sa kanyang panawagan for non-violence a la ghandi and ninoy… kung hindi sa mga coryista na nanalig sa mapayapang pagbabago… walang naganap na EDSA.

kung hindi para sa ikauusad ng laban ni cory, walang coryistang pumunta sa EDSA maliban sa mga alipores nina enrile at ramos at RAM.  kung hindi nangumpisal si enrile na dinaya si cory sa cagayan by some 300,000 votes and that the september 22 1972 ambush on his convoy was staged, walang pumunta sa EDSA.

it was very smart of enrile, confirming in so many words that cheating indeed happened in the snap election and that martial law was declared under false pretenses.  ang dating sa people ay, uy!  biglang sinisiraan si marcos, baka cory na sila! — ang tindi at ang sigla ng kabig sa hearts and minds of the anti-marcos.

napaka-smart din of enrile to deny the aborted coup (set for 2:00 AM 23 feb, obviously hoping to preempt cory) that the vers discovered and marcos accused enrile and ramos of in a presscon later that saturday night.  admitting to the planned coup would have forced enrile to also admit that he had hoped to replace marcos as head of a ruling junta, which would have been the appropriate time to offer himself as an alternative to cory, in all honesty, except that it would surely have turned off the coryistas.  goodbye, human shields.   which could also be why enrile lied to the people, denied the aborted coup, all through the four days and beyond.

ika-pitong araw na ng boykot nang nag-defect sina enrile at ramos… kung hindi sila nag-defect, tuloy tuloy ang boykot, ipinapalaganap na nga ni cory sa visayas at mindanao (kaya siya nasa cebu, next stop davao).  kung hindi nagdramá sina enrile at ramos, tuloy tuloy ang crony boycott, tuloy tuloy ang panawagan ni cory at ng mga coryista na mag-resign na si marcos.

cory and marcos and, of course, enrile — all three camps — were “working” with a deadline.  the proclaimed winner had to take his/her oath within 10 days from proclamation.  marcos was proclaimed winner by the batasan on feb 15 and was preparing for a feb 25 oathtaking.  cory proclaimed herself winner in luneta on feb 16.

kung hindi nagdramá sina enrile at ramos, i imagine that cory would have been back in manila by the 24th and leading a humongous march to mendiola, if not the palace, demanding marcos’s resignation, and setting the stage for her oathtaking, preferably ahead of marcos.  given such a scenario, with the economy reeling from a nationwide crony boycott, it would not be far-fetched to assume that the military reformists would have defected anyway and fallen in line behind cory and the “will of the people.” wala nang drama-drama.  wala ring whining and tall tales post-marcos.

TIGLAO: Another brilliant move of Enrile was to call Cardinal Sin to ask his faithful to surround Camp Crame to form their human shield.  

CHARRRING!  hello?  iyan ba ang latest press release ni enrile to mark the 33rd anniv?  it was his bright idea that the people be asked to surround camp crame and shield the rebels??? — teka, tiglao can’t even get the camps straight: enrile was in aguinaldo when he phoned cardinal sin sometime before the 6:30 PM presscon (enrile didn’t move to crame until day two, when the tanks started rolling down EDSA); sa aguinaldo rin pinuntahan ni butz aquino si enrile, around 10 PM, after the presscon, and then butz spoke over radio veritas at 10:20 and made that first call for people and a peaceful solution, just before marcos appeared on TV, accusing enrile and ramos of a failed attempt to overthrow him.  according to radio veritas tapes of that night, cardinal sin seconded butz’s call for a peaceful solution at 10:40 while marcos was on tv, which means the cardinal did not exactly rush to do enrile’s bidding, if bidding it was.

ayon sa cardinal, humingi ng tulong si enrile, na ayaw pa daw niyang mamatay; it sounded to the cardinal daw like enrile was trembling, almost crying.  ayon kay enrile, puro kasinungalingan!  iyun nga lang, hindi malinaw kung alin ang kasinungalingan: na tinawagan niya si cardinal sin?  o, na nangingining ang boses niya sa takot at mangiyak-ngyiyak siya nung tawagan niya si cardinal?  kung yung una, e di wow, fake news, tiglao!

kung yung huli, wow pa rin.  so enrile wasn’t scared at all, he was so sure kasi that the people would come and save his skin if the cardinal asked them to?  but why would the cardinal even have entertained his request, unless maybe he offered to support cory in return?

ayon naman kay butz na nag-alok ng tulong, “we need all the support we can get” ang tugon ni enrile; ayon pa kay butz, enrile was “tense, perspiring, perhaps from the heat of his bullet-proof vest.”  a bullet-proof vest.  clearly enrile expected bullets to fly and could only think of staying alive.  but, again, who knows, he could have told butz exactly what tiglao alleges he told the cardinal, which might explain why butz was quick to go on radio and call on people to join him in a march to the EDSA camp?

but who’s to say that tiglao and/or enrile speak the truth on this matter at this point in time, with the cardinal and butz no longer around to confirm or deny.  too late the hero, di ba.  enrile should have claimed the bright idea while the two still lived, why didn’t he?  maybe because at some point during the four days he may have deceived himself into thinking that the people were in EDSA, not for cory, but for him?  LOLZ.

TIGLAO: The Marcos military succumbed to the EDSA forces because they realized that they were helpless facing the huge crowds. Marcos had given them the categorical order which was impossible to implement — “Disperse the crowds but do not shoot them.”  Isn’t it Marcos therefore that made it possible for EDSA to be a “peaceful revolution”?

CHAROOOOOT!  by the time marcos staged that piece of performance art on TV around 10 AM on day 3 Monday, ordering ver “not to attack” (were his words), it was AFTER he had earlier ordered an all out bomb attack on crame, but which orders were defied at around 6 AM by sotelo’s 15th strike wing that landed in crame instead and joined the rebels, and at around 9 AM by balbas’s marines who found all kinds of reasons not to fire on crame from aguinaldo’s golf course.  tapos na ang boksing.  marcos had lost control of the military, so nag-drama na lang sila ni ver, kunwari ay nagpipigil.

In fact, when Marcos had that exchange with Ver on nationwide TV, he was just being his wily old self, making the best of a bad situation by pretending to be the good guy, hoping to fool Washington D.C. and the Vatican, if not the Filipino people, a little while longer. [EDSA UNO (2013) page 206]

TIGLAO: The US betrayed Marcos, shanghaiing him to Hawaii.

TRULILI!  but marcos had no one to blame but himself for trusting that the americans would stand by him and risk the ire of cory who started calling the shots the moment bosworth phoned to inform her that marcos had left the palace.

… it was the Marcoses themselves who had called on the Americans for help. What if they had not so distrusted the pilots of the presidential helicopters who were prepared, since Monday morning, to fly them to anywhere in the islands; or what if Marcos had motored to Paoay in his fully-equipped ambulance. And then, again, perhaps Marcos was just too sick for a long road trip, which would render impressive the fact that he was able to walk out of the palace on his own two feet.

Still and all, if they had snubbed the American offer, if they had left under their own steam, chances are they would have made it to Paoay, and People Power would have had to regroup.

So do we owe the Americans a debt of gratitude for taking him away into exile? The better ending would have been if the Marcoses had taken the presidential choppers, and the pilots turned out to be reformists and took the First Couple to Crame instead. With Enrile in charge, no harm would have come to them, but they would have had to face the judgement of the people in a revolutionary court, and maybe, just maybe, People Power would have levelled up to the challenge of standing strong for the greater good vs. the elite and crony interests represented by Cory and Enrile.

That would have brought closure, and ushered in a new order. [EDSA UNO page 320]

TIGLAO: Under both the 1935 and 1973 Constitution, Corazon Aquino was not qualified to run for president in the 1986 “snap elections.”

MOOT AND ACADEMIC (AND ANEMIC).  a case “that ceases to present a justiciable controversy by virtue of supervening events, so that a declaration thereon would be of no practical value. As a rule, courts decline jurisdiction over such case, or dismiss it on ground of mootness.”

TIGLAO:  Cory’s 1986 electoral campaign was handled by a US PR firm.

SO WHAT.  marcos’s 1986 electoral campaign was handled, too, by a US PR firm: black, manafort, stone & kelly.  as for sawyer-miller, read tina arceo-dumlao’s British lord recalls Cory Aquino campaign.

LORD MARK MALLOCH-BROWN.  I remember that it was about two days after that article [on Cory knowing next to nothing about the US bases, bylined by then New York Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal] was published that I flew to Iloilo to meet her (Cory) as she was campaigning.

… I have never done a campaign in an environment like the Philippines. Thank God for the Inquirer and thank God for Radio Veritas, too. Literally, they were the only two who would fairly cover us.

…  the group’s strategy during the snap elections was to often challenge Marcos to a debate since they knew that he could not be separated long enough from the machine he needed to keep his kidneys going to attend a debate.

MULLOCH-BROWN. … (Cory’s) main thing was this willingness she had to overcome the media problem by just going and campaigning everywhere. I mean she was formidable. She was just out on the road every day going all over the country and I have done an awful lot of campaigns since but I still say I learned my whole business on Cory’s campaign.

… during that campaign she was very strategic and disciplined about what she was doing. It was a real privilege to watch her.

Exit poll 

He said his final outstanding accomplishment during the Cory campaign was to produce an exit poll that indicated that she had won. It landed on the front page of the Inquirer and had a profound impact as it planted the idea that Aquino had won over Marcos, 55 percent to 45 percent.  

her stint as prez left much to be desired, but I love cory anyway for her gift of EDSA.  I think she was at her most wonderful and dazzling in the 10 days of the crony boycott that climaxed in marcos’s ouster. I think she handled ninoy’s jailers, enrile and ramos, quite brilliantly — i doubt that we could have freaked marcos out just like that if not for cory.

so please, if you machos must diss her, diss her for refusing to repudiate marcos debts or for having to ask the US for help in quelling the 1989 coup attempt or for exempting certain haciendas from agrarian reform, but please not for EDSA, and not for the sake of enrile and marcos, because that says so much more about you guys than about cory, who was in another league altogether at that point in time.