This reading today I needed to read several times. It is a complex passage that seems to have several areas one could talk about. Each time I read it, the portion saying: "The True test of our spirituality occurs when we come up against injustice, degradation, ingratitude, and turmoil....." I immediately began to reflect on our time in the Philippines in 1984-1986 and of the revolution that took place there.
We had moved to the Philippines in July, 1984 with World Vision. Our eldest child, Jeremy, then 5 years old, began school at the International School in Manila. Justin, 3 years old and our second son, went to school at The Early Learning Center in San Lorenzo Village, Makati, Manila, where we lived. Our daughter, Amanda, was born in December, 1984 at Makati Medical Center.
We lived in a village that backed up to a road called, EDSA. This road would become well known around the world because of the events that took place there. Let me start this with a bit of a history of political events in the Philippines that took place prior to the People's Power Revolution.:
President Ferdinand Marcos became the duly elected president of the the Philippines in 1965. His greatest achievements were in the areas of international diplomacy and development of infrastructure. However, his government became known for human rights violations and corruption.
September 1972, Martial Law was declared. Congress was dissolved and the news media suppressed with the establishment of one government run media outlet. At this time many of the opposition leaders went into exile and Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, who was openly opposing the Marcos regime was arrested and held in prison on charges of murder, subversion and illegal firearms violations. He was held in solitary confinement.
In 1977, Benigno Aquino was sentenced to death but this was delayed for fear of his becoming a martyr.
Initially the Filipino people were supportive of the martial law because the imposed curfew decreased crime and there was a great increase in the exports and tourism. Then Marcos began to confiscating businesses and giving these to his family and close friends. This began a change in how he was supported by the people.
May 1980, Mr Aquino went to the USA for health reason with a promise to return when he was well.
August, 1983, he attempted to return to the Philippines under a pseudonym but was assassinated as he reached the bottom step of the airplane stairs and before his feet touched Philippine soil again. One of our friends, Bruce Davis, was on that flight and saw the assassination take place.
November 1985, President Marcos, feeling pressure from other countries, announced 'snap' elections to take place February 7, 1986. He was opposed by many candidates but the primary one was the Corazon "Cory" Aquino, the wife of slain leader, Benigno Aquino. There were many violations noted by international observers. February 9, 1986, while the ballots were being counted, a group of vote tabulators noted the discrepancies between their count and the official numbers by the government and they walked out in protest. February 15, 1986, the Catholic Church declared the elections to be fraudulent while at the same time the Marcos dominated General Assembly declared him the official winner.
By February 22, 1986, the plans to arrest President Marcos were discovered and the People's Power Revolution began. Two major players, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the Philippines Armed Forces Vice Chief of Staff, General Fidel Ramos, joined together and informed Cardinal Sin of the Catholic Church, they were joining the opposition. General Ramos and Enrile held a press conference at Camp Aguinaldo via the outlawed radio station, Veritas, to announce their resignations and defection to the opposition. On radio Veritas, Cardinal Sin asked the Filipino people to come to the aid of the rebel leaders and come to EDSA with support, food, and other supplies. After his announcement, nuns, priests and civilians came to EDSA to protest. Hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians...some with their whole family.....also came to EDSA. During this time we attended an international church called The Union Church of Manila. The pastor at that time was Darrell Johnson. He is one of the best pastors we have ever had the privilege to listen to. His heart for truth and willingness to speak for the truth regardless of public opinion makes him extremely powerful. During the days of the People Power Revolution he preached on "The Kingdom of God, Already but Not Yet". The point of the sermon was to recognize that sometimes God allows us to witness a glimpse of His kingdom here on earth. Darrell was so in tuned to God that he was able to communicate God's vision for His prophetic Kingdom....as it was happening right before us.....for those few days in history. He said in a report, "Let it be noted for the record that we witnessed a validation of Jesus' claim that in Him God's Kingdom, God's new order, is breaking into the world through "the meek," through those who forsake the trappings of power and risk their lives to go the way of the cross." (Union Church Philippines History)
I was home with the children and didn't believe I should go and protest with the Filipinos. It was difficult for me not to go but instead I was able to show support and solidarity by making many many sandwiches. Bryan and Darrell took these sandwiches and gave them to the protesters. Darrell worked with the Catholic Church to convince all of us that we as believers are all parts of one body of Christ. ".....to find ways for such a large, diverse church to really be the Family of God and discover the richness and joy of being the Body of Christ." (Union Church Philippines History)
Not all of the Christians were willing to stand up against the tyranny of the government at that time. Many spoke out on the radio encouraging Christians to stay home and pray.....not to get involved. I am confident that they have a real sadness to have missed what God was doing during those days.....
The revolution started on Saturday, February 22. On the 24th, we were in bed, early in the morning and I remember hearing the sound of many helicopters overhead. Bryan looked and saw they were gunships. We began to pray that God would protect the people from a massacre.....and the 7 helicopters landed and joined the protesters. We didn't know at that time that they had already changed allegiance to the People Power Revolution.
It was extremely difficult to get any news in Manila as the only stations on the TV were government run. I remember they showed one movie......"Missing".....about an idealistic writer who disappears during the military coupe in 1973 Chile. The only other thing to watch was President Marcos sitting at a table, speaking impromptu at times, doing push ups to show he was healthy....that was it. Bryan went down to EDSA several times with Filipino staff to get news and to show support.
On February 25, 1986, two inaugurations took place. One was Cory Aquino and the other Ferdinand Marcos. Shortly after he was inaugurated, he left the palace and went into exile in Hawaii.
Three months later we were packing up our belongings to return to the USA. The packers came and gave an estimate of how dense the shipment was. I told them we absolutely had to be within the parameters of the shipping allowance and they told me this would not be a problem. After all the boxes were packed and at the warehouse, I received the itemized list and we were 50% over the weight allowance from World Vision. I went to the shipping company and showed them that one of the two speakers we had was 200 lbs heavier than the other one so I asked them to open the container and reweigh the entire shipment with me there. They said they had to go to lunch. No problem, I'll meet you afterwards and I did. First we needed to re calibrate the scales as they were 25 lbs heavy as I recall. Then they took each box and we weighed it and I wrote the actual weight next to their fraudulent weight. When we were about half way through the container the manager came and offered to adjust the weight to the maximum World Vision allowed. I said, no. We will weigh it all....and we did. It took about 5 hours. Then I took the new weights in to meet with the managing director and he offered me a free shipment if I didn't tell World Vision or anyone else about the fraud. By then I was on a soap box.....and I noticed that everyone was wearing yellow clothing that day.....and I couldn't help myself.....here we had just lived through the most amazing change of power in any country....because they were in the right.....they were seeking justice.....and here these guys were trying to scalp the price of the shipment because companies always 'just pay', they said. So I said, "How can you be wearing yellow, Cory's color, a color of justice and right and you are stealing from people." "You should be ashamed". The poor man said, "I'm sorry maam....this is just the color of the uniform for today". I told him he should never wear it again. And we paid for our shipment and let World Vision know of the attempted fraud.
I'm thankful that there are times when God leads us into places where we do need to stand up...to face the injustices in life and speak for the those who are dis-empowered. Also, we are thankful that were in the Philippines during this time and able to see, first hand, when God's kingdom breaks through and a supernatural peace overcomes all of us..... Sadly, it didn't take very long before the curtain closed again.......although God's kingdom was present but we couldn't see it any longer.
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