from Ronald U. Mendoza on Facebook:
Some people seem to think so very little has changed since 1986. Not true. Under the dictator: almost 60% poverty (today it’s at 17%); debt of at least 90% of GDP (today it’s down to 40%); vibrant insurgency (back then well over 20,000 NPA compared to roughly less than 4000 today); sick man of Asia reputation (now investment grade credit rating), to name a few stark differences. We successfully left all of that thanks to EDSA. Sure, our institutions are still imperfect, but we are far from the basket case we were under the dictatorship.
While we still face many challenges, at the very least, that boy (now a man) has one less big problem today — that dictatorship that we should never return to again. That’s good enough downpayment by those brave parents, who helped give the next generation a fighting chance to keep building this democracy. Please stop thinking that EDSA was supposed to solve all our problems. That kind of reasoning is a form of absolutist thinking — and that’s what history re-inventers are banking on.
Every generation faces a challenge worthy of its best nature — our parents’ generation who fought to kick out a dictator and restore democracy, and our generation’s fight today to protect that democracy and keep building it.
