Filipino Church celebrates 39 years since ‘People Power’ revolution

‘Even if the state does not commemorate it, the Church will continue to do so,’ said Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David.

The Filipino Catholic Church joined celebrations on 25 February for the thirty-ninth anniversary of the bloodless People Power Revolution that ousted dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986.

Priests and nuns joined thousands along Metro Manila’s main highway, EDSA, to commemorate the 1986 uprising. In the evening, around 600 Catholics attended Mass at the 300-seater EDSA Shrine to celebrate the Feast of Mary, Queen of Peace, also known as Our Lady of EDSA. 

Leading Catholic schools also suspended classes on 25 February, defying the decision of the dictator’s son and namesake President Ferdinand Marcos Jr not to declare a holiday.

“Even if the state does not commemorate it, the Church will continue to do so,” said Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

On 22-25 February 1986, the People Power Revolution saw two million Filipinos gathering at EDSA demonstrate against 14 years of the Marcos dictatorship. The protest erupted after a radio broadcast by Cardinal Jaime Sin, then the Archbishop of Manila, for Filipinos to protect rebel soldiers holed up in the military camp along EDSA. Clergy and religious stood on the frontlines of the uprising, as they confronted military tanks with rosaries and statues of the Virgin Mary. 

In a homily on the anniversary, David said it is not an accident that EDSA stands for “Epifanio de los Santos” – “Epiphany of the Saints” in English. The highway received the name in 1959.

“At that time, it became clear to us that the words ‘holy’ and ‘hero’, ‘holiness’ and ‘heroism’, are always connected. Holiness without heroism is just self-righteousness. Holiness without heroism, or without concrete concern for the welfare of the nation, has nothing to do with God,” said David.

The Archbishop of Manila Cardinal Jose Advincula spoke along the same lines on 25 February, at the episcopal ordination of Bishop Rufino Sescon Jr, whom Pope Francis appointed to the Diocese of Balanga in December.

Sescon, a former private secretary to Cardinal Sin, chose to be ordained during the People Power anniversary. The principal ordaining prelate was Archbishop Socrates Villegas, who preceded Sescon as an aide to Cardinal Sin, while his guests included two daughters of the Philippines’ democracy icon Corazon Aquino, who replaced the dictator Marcos in 1986.

“We cannot retell our story as a people without the EDSA People Power of 1986, and our history as a Catholic nation without the voice of EDSA, Jaime Cardinal Sin,” Advincula said.

“The story of EDSA People Power is a story of prayer power. It is a story of a praying nation using the values of the Gospel for social change,” he added.

Sescon, who called Cardinal Sin a “priest, prophet, and patriot”, said he “received the grace of the episcopate” on 25 February “as a form of prayer for generosity, that I may never forget, that we may never forget”.

“I pray that we may never forget that to be a good Christian, a good priest, a good bishop is also to give ourselves to become a good citizen, vigilant to truth, justice, integrity, freedom, and peace. The truly godly are also patriotic,” he said.

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