The People Power Revolution of 1986

By Candy Gourlay

Posted this note on my Facebook author page today



This photo crops up on my timeline on the anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines. It was my only photo during those heady times and you can only just see me behind the crowd of photojournalists and soldiers.

So many people now smirk at that uprising, I am sorry to report. Some say, it didn't achieve anything except unseat the dictator Ferdinand Marcos who had been leaching Philippine coffers for more than 20 years. Some now even say life was better under Marcos’ dictatorship. In fact, the villains of that era are now enjoying a strange ascendance and popularity buoyed by my native land’s personality-led politics and powerplay.


It was the first time I saw a previously cowed people stand up to a bully and I will always celebrate this event. It is something to think about in this era of division and lies. In 2016, when I posted this photo, I wrote an account of what it was like to be part of the revolution - I reproduce my account below.

I can't believe it has been thirty years since the People Power Revolution which happened in the Philippines between 22 to 25 February 1986. My late friend Rey Vivo took this photo, which is the only one I've seen of myself during that time (you can see my glasses peeking out behind the soldiers). Here in the UK, keeping my head down to meet a deadline, that experience seems like a dream.

This photo was taken when tanks and APCs appeared on Ortigas Avenue near an area of posh gated villages. The air was filled with the smell of gasoline, oil and exhaust. The crowd immediately surged in front of the tanks, some people literally trying to push them back. Women clutching rosaries were sobbing, convinced that the tanks were going to run them over. And yet they didn't move away.
I was really scared and I stood to the side. So I didn't get into all the famous photos of Filipinos defying tanks that later hit the front pages all over the world. The APCs revved their engines to try to frighten the crowd away. It was a blood curdling sound. But nobody moved and there was a long standoff.

The army had yet to turn against Marcos and in the photo, these soldiers were doing what police controlling football crowds call "kettling". At some point during this time, I remember losing my rag as the soldiers shoved us around roughly. I was imagining the bloodbath that was about to happen, with me in the middle of it. I yelled at the soldier in front of me, 'We could be your family. I could be your sister. How can you treat us like this?'

But there was no bloodbath. To his credit, the soldier showed no emotion and didn't retaliate. He could have just lashed out with the butt of his gun and everything would have been different. Such a contrast to the many demonstrations I'd covered as a journalist when it didn't take much for police to start using their batons, electric cattle prods, tear gas and water cannon against the opposition. As a journalist, I had visited detention centres and listened to the stories of torture and murder committed by the military under Marcos' command. I once visited a village burned to the ground because the people sympathised with the New People's Army. I've spent time visiting hospitals to count the casualties after violent dispersals of demonstrations.

I guess at the time, the military was already considering its position and were not going to allow things to go out of control. Soon after, the military declared on the side of the people.

When I think of this scene and remember the heat, the stench of so many people, the smell of the guns, I remember my fear. Later, I read all the complete sentences written by journalist colleagues and marvelled at how they could so neatly describe it all.

The Philippines is remembering those three days in February right now, in the midst of an election which includes Marcos' son, Bong Bong, running for Vice President.

Now I was not persecuted or tortured, like the brave souls who stood up against Marcos, but I was part of a passive, walking dead population that surrendered my rights and my future to the dictator. When Marcos fled, the catharsis was almost unbearable.

Thirty years on, the Philippines is marginally wealthier but still on an economic and political rollercoaster because of an impermeable layer of elites who prevent wealth from trickling down to the grindingly poor majority. It saddens me that the Marcoses and their cronies are still in power, with a well-oiled social media and marketing campaign to retrieve their reputations. Most of all, it saddens me that there are so many young Filipinos who discount that time and say that our situation was better under Marcos.

They don't know what it's like to feel hope for the first time in their lives.

Fondly in memory of my friend Rey Vivo, who took this photo.

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