WHEN 22-year old Nicole Aliasas, with clenched fist raised, cut that lone diminutive silhouette under the noonday sun at the gates of the heroes’ cemetery as the murderer of activists and the world’s greatest thief was being lowered on sacred ground, it was an indication that something had shifted in the political consciousness of our nation’s young.
The schemers thought that they could hastily inter the dictator’s body so that no one would notice, or if they did, let the incident pass without any fanfare. They especially did not count on the youth to even be concerned, they of short attention spans, the so-called instant gratification generation with no knowledge about the nation’s dark past. The public outcry among Nicole’s generation proved their terrible miscalculation.
Immediately after the stealthy burial, the internet was abuzz with their indignation. However, they did not let their digital screens confine their anger. They poured into the streets from Taft Avenue to Katipunan, as well as in key cities all over the country. They came out with their witty self-made placards from their universities with a passion that caught everyone by surprise. They left their call center jobs that same day to proceed to the People Power Monument at Edsa foregoing their happy hour gimmicks to display their displeasure.
Proving that their anger was not a one-off fluke and instead was a deliberate and sustained stance, they came out by the thousands last November 25 at the Luneta amid the incessant rain in a joyous display of unity and rage. There is nothing like the energy of the youth to electrify a mass demonstration. The solidarity and social anger was palpable but this time coursed through the refreshing language and ways of the young.
The event was a meme festival where the stars were the audience themselves. The energy of the night was captured for eternity in that picture which graced the front page of a major broadsheet. Scribbled digitally on what seems to be a tablet, and hoisted amid a sea of LED beacons, was a millennial phrase that encapsulated the stance of the young generation over the public restoration of the hated political family “Marcos ew.”
The night was a meeting of the old with the new as well. One of the touching moments of the evening was when the survivors of the dictator’s iron hand rule, victims of torture, arrest, and persecution, took to the stage to remind the young of their sacrifices through speeches, poetry, and song. The affair transformed from just being a platform for the expression of a valid social anger to a veritable education festival like all public demonstrations should be.
From where do these so-called millenials call out from within themselves this new conviction? As an educator, there was a brief moment of pride in recognizing that our sector’s valiant efforts to speak about the continuing horrors of the dictatorship and elite democracy actually bear fruit. Oftentimes, teaching to raise political consciousness seems like a pyrrhic struggle. But just like those who came before us in this profession, we have to be optimistic about how the young come into their own convictions in their own time. Judging by the indignation of the significant sector of the young the past weeks, there is reason to hope and dream that all is not lost as of yet.
But we still have a long way to go. For every awakened youth that showed up that evening in Luneta, there are hundreds more who buy the moving on propaganda peddled by the Marcoses and Duterte. That is the challenge for the young who have taken on this cause. They need to convince their generation that the restoration of the Marcoses and the complicity of the Duterte administration do not bid well for the future of this nation.
But everyone will remember the historic night for the political potential unleashed that evening when the old and the new came together for a radical political awareness. The underhanded manner with which the burial of Marcos was pushed by the Duterte administration revealed the limits and dangers of handing absolute political power to an elite albeit populist figurehead. The resounding roar of the crowd both young and old of the chant “Marcos, Diktador, Hitler, Tuta!” was a portent warning for all past tyrants and those who work towards their rehabilitation.
Ka Satur Ocampo puts the question squarely before Malacañang's doorsteps in his speech that evening. He challenged Duterte to choose whose side is he really on, the Marcoses or the Filipino nation? The likes of Nicole and this generation’s young will be vigilantly weighing this administration’s answer to that challenge.
