HERE’S the Pinoy now, discussing topics that seem to copy-paste the topics of the ‘70s and ‘80s when PBBM’s dad was the dictator, er, president.

The news nowadays: transitional government, PBBM should resign.

Transition? Resignation? Hmmm. I feel like I’m the most clueless Pinoy in Pinas right now.

I thought the protests are merely pa-cute, you know, for content. So they can take selfies and videos and post them on TikTok.

I guess I’ve reached that point of no return: I don’t care anymore. I’ve given up. I’m not going back to guarding a TV station against evil forces like what I did in the 1986 People Power when I helped stop a Marcos-ish tank from attacking the yellow-ish Channel 4. No matter who occupies the most precious political thrones in Pinas, graft and corruption have become the country’s hard habits to break.

Still, Pinas needs an annual People Power. To reboot. Refresh. Restart.

Protesting can be fun to the Pinoy who loves adventure. In 1986, there was a sniper perched on a TV network tower outside of Channel 4, ready to shoot at us. I learned about this the morning after when a photo of his, dead and dangling from that tower, was on the front page of a yellow-ish newspaper.

Apparently, the helicopter that was flying above us was yellow-ish and had military guys whose mission was to kill him. Before that chopper flew overhead, we were ordered to crouch on the street and advised not to look up or stand up until we were told to do so.

Oh. In case you were born yesterday, there was a time when Pinas was divided into two: the Marcoses versus the yellows aka the Aquinos. This began on August 21, 1983 when Ninoy Aquino was assassinated.

There’s this song that goes, “tie a yellow ribbon 'round the ole oak tree/It’s been three long years, do you still want me? (still want me)/If I don’t see a ribbon ‘round the ole oak tree/I’ll stay on the bus, forget about us, put the blame on me/If I don’t see a yellow ribbon ‘round the ole oak tree.”

President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s martial law kept Aquino in prison since September 1972 until May 1980 when the latter was allowed to go to the US for heart surgery. There he remained in exile with his family for three years.

Before his return to Pinas, his supporters planned a grand welcome for him by tying yellow ribbons around trees along the route he was going to take from Manila International Airport (MIA) to his residence at Times Street in Quezon City.

But he never saw the ribbons. He was assassinated on the tarmac of MIA.

Now you know why MIA was renamed the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in 1987. His widow, Tita Cory, became president on February 25, 1986 during People Power, replacing Marcos Sr. who was then banished to the US with First Lady Imelda and the rest of the family including Imee, who’s now a senator, and BBM who’s now PBBM.

The US as the beleaguered Pinoy’s haven for exile. Do you see a pattern here?

The yellows’ color somehow faded after Noynoy Aquino’s presidential term ended in 2016.

Leni Robredo chose pink as her color when she ran as the opposition’s presidential candidate in 2022. BBM won that race using the Marcoses favorite color, red.