PHILADELPHIA, USA - The Philippines has always been ahead of the United States in terms of time and date. But it has always lagged behind in values and the importance it bestows on history. A key example is the January 20 EDSA II celebration which the sitting administration has engineered to be un-commemorated, forgotten by media and erased in the public mind, as though such a fateful event in national history never took place at all.

The Philippines has a proud history and a proud, vibrant people. Despite three centuries of Spanish colonization and half a century under the Americans, we have remained a strong democratic republic founded on Christian ideals and mores. In or outside the archipelago, the Filipino is Filipino: happy, fervent, resilient, sacrificing and God-fearing. The problem is that certain eccentricities are conspiring to erase a significant part of his proud history.

The January 20, 2001 EDSA II toppling of Joseph Estrada’s administration would be a milestone in any country, all the more for a people like ours. It was an instantaneous public outburst-cum-revolt against the decisions of Senatorial allies of a besieged President to block the presentation of major evidence that could have turned the tide for conviction. The people became furious, disenchanted and disillusioned. From the early noise and horn barrages on Timog Avenue in Quezon City, to sparse militant activists’ congregations, to political and military defections, to the sudden surge of people towards EDSA – history was suddenly made.

History was made when the inevitable happened. To depose a President means that someone would have to step in as replacement. After days in the sweltering heat of EDSA, listening to speeches and patriotic music, cooling off at Robinson’s Galleria and using its restroom facilities, the EDSA participants heard and later saw the inauguration of the Vice President as the country’s new Chief Executive. At that point, the realization was, did the people honestly participate in EDSA II to have the Vice President succeed? Arguably, the answer was a deafening no. Then again, what choice did we really have?

As part of Philippine history, the peaceful removal of the now-controversially freed ex-President and the inopportune installation of the Vice President as the new Chief Executive (pronounced legal by the Supreme Court) were celebrated by the sitting government for the years succeeding 2001. EDSA II had its own celebrations, was well documented on television, and enjoyed wide government reinforcement. It was used as a reminder that the people – unwittingly, indirectly or, for some, unknowingly – supported the sitting government.

After the 2004 Elections marked by allegations of fraud, conspiracy and cheating (churning up a result seen as unsettling by many) the celebration of EDSA II began to be dumped, its value all but used up. Like a used rag, it was reaching its capacity to clean.

The sitting President may have thought the 2004 electoral results a personal vindication since many doubted the legitimacy of her ascension. Later she described that second bloodless revolt as something the world just tolerated. But the results of those elections can hardly be interpreted as a validation of popular support for her. Neither EDSA II nor that election clearly conferred the people’s support for this government. The elections can even be viewed as a rescission or revocation of the mandate ushered in at the climax of those fateful days in January 2001.

Why does that the government wants to relegate EDSA II, to the dustbins of history, in the words of a senior official? And why is ex-President Joseph Estrada, through a full ads by his political camp, earnestly supporting this deliberate erasure of an important historical epoch? A People Power uprising may be seen by administration allies as something that creates as well as destroys. This sitting government was steered into leadership by the second People Power, but has itself had to repulse several serious attempts at unseating it. People Power is a tool the powers-that-be believe has been used too often and should now permanently be closed for human traffic.

Is it? EDSA as a venue for political change permanently closed for human traffic? Many could still attempt another EDSA, as was felt in February last year, and even in new People Power forms such as hotel takeovers and seizures of five-star residences. History, not the sitting government, should be the one to decide whether EDSA should indeed be permanently closed for peaceful democratic change. Since history is usually written by and in the eyes of the victor, government attempts to downplay EDSA II in the hopes of erasing it is both critical and extremely influential.

With government virtually sealing off EDSA or EDSA-like attempts and trying to pluck off the People Power spirit from people’s brains, alongside incessant reports of missing journalists, arrests of protesters and activists, and the clamping down of the oppositionist press, what other avenues are available for legitimate criticism? Sadly, Philippine elections are often bought and sold like commodities. A feeling of helplessness is thus persistent and the stench of elitist rule overpowering.

What millions of people do about that is another inevitable: move abroad, earn a good living, send remittances, and seek reforms elsewhere. These are things people are forced to do since many feel they are being driven out by everything bad about the country while pulled close to heart by everything that is good. If you cannot go to EDSA to protest, you go somewhere else – somewhere far in many cases.

But no matter how spin doctors try to weed it out and expunge it, EDSA II is forever etched in the Filipino mind– an outpouring of collective sentiment against big, corrupt government and for direly needed progressive new leadership.

This government will never come out clean about its agenda in not commemorating EDSA II. It would rather not talk about EDSA II – puzzling, if not suspicious in its confluence with the Estrada pardon, the so-called “heal(ing) the wounds of EDSA,” the reconciliatory tone with pro-Estrada forces, and the ongoing rabid allegations of government anomalies.

Perhaps government advisers simply thought celebrating EDSA II and releasing Joseph Estrada (unjustifiably) to be totally irreconcilable – celebrating the People Power-backed overthrow of someone the sitting President just released. But however much this government keeps its true intention in the shadows, one thing remains: government cannot unconditionally snuff out something as Filipino as people-initiated change.

The author was a Young Leaders Program/ Mombusho scholar at the Kyushu University in Japan where he took his Master of Laws in 2005-2006. He has worked in research and legal consulting and is now an LL.M-candidate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School while attending a cross-disciplinary program at the Wharton School. He is an Associate on-leave from one of the country’s biggest law firms in Makati City.