Remembering the Yellow Avenue

It was 10 days before my 7th birthday, the first quarter of being a first grader. I remember running around our old compound like an adult who lost his Facebook password. Three of my aunts together with my mother are glued in front of the old 14” colored TV that the whole clan seems to own as their version of Times Square Cinemas.

For a young kid like me, it was just any other news that my family used to watch on a regular basis. Little did I know that the future of Philippine democracy is shaping up.. by virtue of the death of a certain Ninoy Aquino.

A few years later, after watching consecutive episodes of the Aug 21 tribute to the late opposition senator, I began to understand in my tiny brain that there is this bad person who is in power who is in one way or another, responsible for the death of the other good person.

He was jailed and exiled. In my young age I started to take interest on his speeches, his strong personality was enough to capture the minds of both young and old.
I remember watching on TV over and over again how he died, he was all white in a second then blood stained the next.

Eventually he became a hero. And he was survived by a wife who then became the next president; the catalyst of a united Filipino towards a new Philippines; the icon of change; the dawning of a new era of politics. She was Corazon Aquino.

Fast forward to the headlines a few days ago, the wife joined the husband in peace, and once again, the Filipinos were reunited on the same place were the battle tanks were peacefully halted. This time not to oust a dictator, but to pay respect to the person responsible for the ouster of a dictator in power.

The avenue that was once yellow in one voice against a power hungry leader is again yellow in one last respect to the person worthy of that respect.

The last time we saw the yellow avenue it was a battle between good and evil. The evil lost and the good prevailed against all odds. There is an “annoying” antagonist and a protagonist who holds the yellow flag of victory.

Would you mind if I say Deja vu?

“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history”
Barrack Obama

Photo:http://fjsanchez.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/cory_aquino1.jpg