The nation will soon mark the 40th anniversary of EDSA, a time of simplicity, complexity, and mythmaking. Four days before the Snap Election of February 1986, Renato Constantino wrote insights in the fortnightly paper WE Forum that deserves our pause today: “I view the current electoral exercise with ‘amiable skepticism.’ The frenetic activities have diverted the attention of the people from basic issues. Both Marcos and Aquino view the economic situation within the parameters of the IMF program. Economic issues have been depoliticized. . . . “The opposition is performing a useful service in the general struggle against authoritarian rule and therefore is contributing to an aspect of the protest movement. But unless they present this question and the attendant violations of human rights as consequences of an economic program that benefits foreign interests and unless they propose concrete measures that will reverse [READ]
Image source: Mabuhay News On January 31 at Kamuning Bakery Café, Quezon City, the Pandesal Forum gathered scholars, family representatives, and public historians to commemorate Pedro Abad Santos, a revolutionary leader and tireless advocate for workers and peasants. The discussion emphasized Abad Santos’s long-standing commitment to social justice: his leadership in the socialist movement, his advocacy for agrarian reform, and his legal and political work in defense of marginalized communities. Speakers recalled how he repeatedly sacrificed personal wealth and comfort to stand with the rural poor and organized labor, and how his anti-colonial and anti-fascist convictions shaped his public life.
Among those who spoke were Desiree Benipayo, who reflected on Abad Santos’s personal sacrifices and his legal aid to indigent farmers; Eufemio Agbayani III of the NHCP, who placed Abad Santos within the broader arc of [READ]
