---Yellow Gypsy---: Byahe Tungong Liwanag: An EDSA 30 Experience

I am a millennial---born just two years before the People Power Revolution.

By the time that I became aware of the world outside home and my school, I was already free to say and write about anything. My parents and teachers never had to censure my personal views for safety. I was an opinionated student council officer in the latter years of grade school and a feisty school paper editor back in high school. From college up to the present, I would either start or take part in small advocacies unperturbed by Internet and real-life trolls.

Given these circumstances, it is hard for me to imagine a life under Martial Law.

On the 30th anniversary of EDSA, I went to Camp Aguinaldo to visit the EDSA 30 experiential museum along with my sister and daughter. Aptly called, "Byahe Tungong Liwanag (Journey Towards the Light)," we were able to walk in the footsteps of those who lived through the dark years of the Martial Law, peeking through cracks of poverty and watching the elite [Marcos circles] live royal lives while the rest of the country plunged into debt and destitution.

When fellow millennials quote vice presidential candidate and Marcos' son, Bongbong Marcos, saying that the country was in a better position during his father's time, I ask: If the country was indeed as prosperous then as Bongbong would want us to believe now, then how come there was so much unrest? Apologists conveniently downplay the activism that pervaded during those times and justify thousands of deaths and disappearances then as military initiatives to bring down communism and rebellion. But I contest.

Identities of Martial Law victims line the walls of the room

Children with missing parents

We passed through hallways and entered rooms that were lined with faces and names of real people who have died, survived or gone missing during the Martial Law. We saw children crying, reminding us of those who have been orphaned because their parents were taken away by the government that was supposed to protect them. Most painfully, we witnessed torture as how the abusive military officers would carry them out for entertainment and were later moved by the stories told by our forgotten martyrs. Tears swelled from my eyes as an actress re-told the story of Maria Lorena Barros and by the time that Ninoy Aquino's last video was played, I was already sobbing. (It still moves me up to this day.)

Despite all this darkness, I was comforted to come into an awakening. We looked back to our brief experience from the lens of Jose Rizal, our national hero, and his writings. Yes, we could be doomed to commit the same mistakes again as the revolution of 1898 where we were internally divided because of intrigues and mudslinging. Sino nga ba ang talagang nagmahal at nanilbihan sa ating bayan na hindi lamang naging pulitiko?

Presidential aspirant Grace Poe prays as Marcos' daughter,
Imee, watches (Photo Credit: Inquirer)

As I stepped out of the dark museum and back into the light, I cannot help but relate the experience with the current political climate. Thirty years since EDSA, our country is still in need of healing. Can we learn to finally forgive even if the Marcoses remain indifferent to those who continue to suffer from the abuses of Martial Law? How can we get to the point of healing when the very people who seek to represent and guard our freedom are the same people who would defend the Marcoses instead of the country's long-aching people and grant old Ferdinand the favor of a hero's burial despite the unwillingness of his bereaved family to give an apology that is long overdue?

True leadership is not all about charm and charisma and sounding good to please everyone. We need leaders who will be bold and firm to stand for the grieving majority where justice is called into question. We need leaders who would be unafraid to call out the wrongs even if it is at the expense of losing their votes.

Allow me to introduce once again, Mar Roxas, one who never turned his back on the Filipinos despite the comfortable life that he has always been capable to live, and Leni Robredo, who openly expressed her disapproval of Bongbong Marcos' lack of remorse even if she has been trailing behind Bongbong in the surveys.

Let us choose wisely this 2016.