Our children went to war

If not for the hint of rage and the unshed tears that gave their eyes a flint of both anger and fear, we would have shrugged them off for loonies and tripping vandals desecrating a hallowed ground last week, when those 200 kids had “invaded” Malacanang and got their trophies marked in parts of their bodies to show for it.
It had happened before, some two or three generations past, when a small group of youth, breaking away from the rioters who have transformed Mendiola and its far environs into a battleground, commandeered a fire truck abandoned in fear by its crew, and rammed it in one of the palace gates, its siren signaling their momentary triumph into the nerves of its evil occupant.
It was an image captured in graying texture of a newspaper photograph, but vividly remembered by those who weren’t there, simply maybe because they were to far to get where the action was, or they were too young to be part of what became the First Quarter Storm.
Inspired or maybe emboldened by it, many prominent politicians from the opposition of that generation supported their youth’s action against what was then an emerging tyranny. And when martial law was declared two years later, sending many of them to prison and most of the FQS participants to the hills or to their graves, only the bravest of heart remained.
Ninoy Aquino was among them.
Driven by ambition at first, Ninoy drew courage from those kids and the people who resisted the tyrant’s madness since its onset. And from this courage rose a martyr who managed to break the country’s bondage but only in his death; and through his wife and family, that is why we refused to forget, that is why we remembered and honored them last Friday.
And because we remember, as we should, we are inspired and emboldened by our history, which thankfully, are embedded in some of our youth’s values, drawing courage from our past in the hopes of charting a better future for themselves and their own children, that they reclaimed the grounds of Malacanang, albeit briefly, the first time civilians have set foot on its sacred grass since the fall of Marcos at the height of the people power, and temporarily held on until police and presidential security fists and clubs broke their lips and jaws and noses, but not their courage.
They may have fallen short in achievement compared to what their parents did in FQS, but the signs are there, beaming hope for a country made dormant by two parties in Edsa, both were coup de etat, but the second one was prostituted by the person who gained from it all, taking everything, including the crumbs and borjers and the concussions that went with it, all too shameless! Bumukol din naman!
Today’s youth have spoken, without waiting for the 2010 polls when most of them are expected to cast their votes for the very time. And they have lent a very loud voice which a Malacanang occupant refused to hear, no she resisted hearing it.
But it was just the start.
There would no longer be days of disquiet and nights of rage, but the new youth would no longer have to fight pitch battles all over again. But, at least, they’re ready.
Wars take on new faces as armies modernize, but it is the heart that still win wars and not just the howitzers.
Last week’s event in Malacanang would pale in the climax of Cory’s funeral, but it made a stronger statement than the observation of Ninoy’s 26th death anniversary in Makati.
I’m sure that was the way Ninoy and Cory would have wanted it, for they have spoken and they spoke out oud.
Even with broken jaws, teeth and lips.
They weren’t too much of a sacrifice compared to what Ninoy and Cory have given. Or their tortured parents who survived martial law.