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Letter to the Editor

I WILL say a prayer of thanks for Edsa 1.

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I was in grade school when police were battling it out in the streets with students, which I could view outside our classroom window.

I was in high school that Saturday morning, when an eerie air of silence pervaded the campus, for Martial Law has been declared.

I was in college where the President, the Speaker of the House, the Chief Justice and our fraternity were all in one ballroom, celebrating our 60th year, while miles away our other brothers were in prison and the rest in fighting for freedom in the mountains or exiled abroad.

When Ninoy was shot dead, I did think of leaving everything behind, but at some point during the funeral march, I decided to break away at the Magallanes interchange to go home and finish my college education.

But strange how it came to be that I ended up working for, and did very well for one of the suspected masterminds of my brod’s assassination after my graduation. Three years after, Feb. 20, talks of a power struggle was making the rounds, and we thought that there was just going to be a shootout. But that call of Cardinal Sin made all the difference. History was unfolding right before our very eyes.

Much have changed and much have not. Much of February 1986, and the events which have led to it may end up being forgotten. But this space called social media would not have been available to us were it not for the lives of those who fought for what we enjoy now.

And that is why I chose to be thankful, for I have lived through those years where only one spoke and rest whispered, where one man’s word was the law, yet failed to stop wrongdoing for decades. Dissent is not a crime. Silencing dissent is. Freedom must be defended at all costs, and there is never a justification for its curtailment without due process of law. For it is in the free exercise of one’s freedom where man will find his way to the truth and compassion. One free man can liberate a nation, but a multitude will surely drown to the music of the pied piper.

Mabuhay sa mga kababayan kong nagpakabana og nagsakripisyo para sa demokrasya! –Tito Mora, Cagayan de Oro

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