For the first time, the middle class came out. It struck me as being significant and crucial. You had husbands, mothers, children, teen-agers, people from all professions – lawyers, doctors, and engineers. And finally you had the Makati people joining in. That was the most unprecedented. They were the most conservative people in the Philippines; they couldn’t care less about demonstrations.

Teodoro Benigno, bureau chief of Agence France Presse

For me, the most important rallies were on the death anniversaries of Ninoy – August 21, 1984 and 1985. There must be something that makes is easier for Filipinos to express our oneness with those who were victims of injustice. I think there’s a lot to say about the underdog mentality that people always talk about.

Rene Ocampo, S.J.

Aquino’s assassination lit a fire of protest which the country had not seen before. In the months ahead, its flames raged in the city and countryside. Ugarte Field in Makati, the financial district, took its place beside Liwasang Bonifacio (Bonifacio Plaza) in downtown Manila as a center of protest. Here, the upper and the middle class marched with the poor, the professionals with the workers and the unemployed.

Francisco S. Tatad

Now, therefore, I Ferdinand E. Marcos, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers invested upon me by Article VII, Section 10, Paragraph (2) of the Constitution, do hereby place the entire Philippines as defined in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution under martial law and, in my capacity as their Commander-in-chief, do hereby command the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well as any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by me personally or upon my direction.

An excerpt from Proclamation 1081

Dekada '70 is a bittersweet tale of love in the face of hate, hope in the face oppression, and new life in the midst of death. It is a novel of a mother, a supposed irrelevant factor in modern society, and how she struggles to find for herself a sense of purpose and identity while suffering the very pit of the nation's disintegration.

How does a security guard contribute to a rally? Once, I saw a security guard of the Bank of the Philippine Islands in Makati. As the rallyists passed before him, he took out his whistle and began to play Bayan Ko (My Homeland). I don't know how he was able to do that with just a whistle. Everybody applauded him. He blew his whistle with all his might. A picture couldn't capture that. You had to be there to feel it.

John Chua, photographer

. . . Ninoy asked his friend to accompany him to the kitchen where Kennedy was shot. Looking at the outline of body still marked on the floor, Ninoy told his friend: "If I get shot on the head like Kennedy, I am not going to go down on my knees. If you get shot like that, you have a few seconds of life left. If that happens to me, I am going to fall straight down and spread my arms so people will know I never gave up even to the last second."

Luis Beltran, journalist

People power is grounded and based on God's saving activity within us as a people. In the dictum of Augustine: God created us without us, but God will not save us withour us. Our political liberation has been our work and struggle and sacrifice, but equally and internally it has been the work of God.

Fr. Jose Blanco, SJ
Founder, Aksyon Para sa Kapayapaan at Katarungan
(Movement for Peace and Justice)