49 Fun Facts About EDSA Revolution

What is the EDSA Revolution called worldwide?

People Power Revolution. For four days unarmed crowds shielded rebel soldiers from the army with prayers, food and flowers, and the president left the country without a battle.

What does the acronym EDSA stand for?

Epifanio de los Santos Avenue. The road was plain Highway 54 until 1959, when Congress renamed it to honour the scholar, jurist and historian from Rizal province.

Which colour gave the EDSA Revolution its other nickname?

Yellow. The colour came from the hit 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree', which the rebel radio station kept playing between its bulletins during the four days.

Which Archbishop of Manila led the religious groups at EDSA?

Cardinal Jaime Sin. On the night of February 22 he went on the radio to ask people to bring food and support to the rebel soldiers, and by the next day crowds had filled the avenue.

Which station carried the Archbishop of Manila's call for civilians to protect the rebel camps?

Radio Veritas. Armed men wrecked its main transmitter at dawn the next day, leaving a weak standby that reached far fewer listeners and failed by evening.

Where did the Marcos family go into exile?

Hawaii. US Air Force planes flew the family to Honolulu, and Marcos never came home alive: he died there in September 1989.

Hundreds of the shoes Imelda Marcos left in the palace in 1986 are now displayed in which city?

Marikina. The country's shoemaking capital put the seized pairs on show in its Shoe Museum, and Imelda Marcos herself came to open it.

Where was Ninoy Aquino shot dead in August 1983?

Manila's airport. Soldiers escorted him off his plane and he was shot within minutes; in 1987 Congress renamed the airport Ninoy Aquino International in his honour.

Under what alias did Ninoy Aquino fly home in 1983?

Marcial Bonifacio. His wife Cory later explained the choice: 'Marcial' for martial law and 'Bonifacio' for Fort Bonifacio, where he had been held.

Which proclamation number placed the Philippines under martial law in 1972?

No. 1081. Marcos dated it September 21, 1972, but only announced it on television two days later, hours after the arrests of opposition leaders had begun.

Which party did Marcos run under in the 1986 snap election?

Kilusang Bagong Lipunan. Marcos launched the 'New Society Movement' for the 1978 assembly elections, in which every candidate on Ninoy Aquino's opposition slate lost.

Who was Marcos's vice-presidential running mate in the snap election?

Arturo Tolentino. When the assembly proclaimed him and Marcos the winners on February 15, its opposition members walked out of the hall in protest.

Who ran as Cory Aquino's vice-presidential running mate?

Salvador Laurel. 'Doy' Laurel had been nominated for president himself and gave way to Aquino only in December 1985, two months before the vote.

Which accredited poll watcher's count had Aquino beating Marcos?

NAMFREL. While its volunteers' count showed Aquino ahead, the official tally had Marcos winning, and on February 9 the official count's own computer operators walked out in protest.

What was the name of Aquino's February 16 rally at Luneta Park?

Tagumpay ng Bayan. At the 'People's Victory' rally she claimed the win and called for civil disobedience and a boycott of companies owned by Marcos's cronies.

What does RAM, the group of officers behind the aborted coup, stand for?

Reform the Armed Forces Movement. Its officers had planned to storm the presidential palace, and turned to the crowds for protection only after Marcos uncovered the plot.

Which colonel helped found RAM and planned the assault on Malacañang?

Gringo Honasan. His commandos were to cross the Pasig River in rubber boats and seize the Marcoses, but the palace had been warned and the raid was called off.

During the 1986 revolt, which event used to justify martial law was admitted to have been staged?

The defense minister's ambush. Enrile told reporters in 1986 that the 1972 shooting at his car had been faked; within hours of it, Marcos had opposition leaders under arrest.

Which general asked Marcos on live television for permission to attack the rebels?

Fabian Ver. Viewers heard Marcos overrule him on air with 'My order is not to attack', and minutes later rebel soldiers took the station off the air.

Where did Enrile and Ramos hold the February 22 press conference that announced their break with Marcos?

Camp Aguinaldo. They spoke from Enrile's own defense ministry building inside the armed forces headquarters, where the plotters had holed up once their coup was exposed.

Enrile crossed EDSA on February 23 to join Ramos where?

Camp Crame. Ramos had urged the move since morning so the rebels could hold one camp instead of two, and the crowd parted, chanting his nickname 'Johnny', as Enrile's armed column crossed the avenue.

In his televised appeal on February 22, Marcos urged Enrile and Ramos to 'stop this' what?

Stupidity. 'Stop this stupidity and surrender so that we may negotiate', he said on live television, but when he tried to reach Enrile by phone that night, Enrile would not take the call.

Butz Aquino called supporters to gather in which Quezon City district before marching to the rebel camps?

Cubao. He named the Isetann department store as the meeting point and found only four people waiting, but the crowd swelled into the thousands and marched to the camps' gates that night.

Radyo Bandido kept replaying which old tune?

Mambo Magsaysay. The 1950s campaign jingle was already identified with the silenced church station, so replaying it told listeners who was speaking without naming the station or its hiding place.

Which broadcaster kept Radyo Bandido on air through the nights of the revolution?

June Keithley. She broadcast from a hidden booth, relaying news that reporters phoned in and never giving the station's real name or frequency, so that Marcos's troops could not find it.

The hand sign flashed by Cory Aquino's supporters at EDSA forms which letter?

L. The sign began with LABAN, the opposition party Ninoy Aquino led from his prison cell in the 1978 elections, whose name is also the Filipino word for 'fight'.

Which patriotic kundiman became the opposition's protest anthem and was sung at EDSA?

Bayan Ko. The kundiman was sung beside Ninoy Aquino's coffin in 1983, and the crowd broke into it again after Cory Aquino took her oath as president.

Crowds stopped General Tadiar's tank column on February 23 where EDSA meets which road?

Ortigas Avenue. People knelt in prayer in front of the tanks, Tadiar asked them to clear a path, nobody moved, and his troops pulled back without firing a shot.

Colonel Antonio Sotelo's dawn defection on February 24 handed the rebels which weapons?

Attack helicopters. The crowd braced for an air strike as his gunships circled the rebel camp, then cheered as they landed inside and the crews climbed out to join the revolt.

Colonel Braulio Balbas's stalling on orders to shell the rebel camp cost Marcos control of which force?

Marines. With his howitzers aimed and a general shouting that the President was waiting on the other line, Balbas kept replying that his men were 'still positioning the cannons'.

What did Marcos do at the palace around noon on February 25, his last day in power?

Held his own inauguration. Rebel troops knocked out the last loyal TV transmitter just as he raised his hand, and by midnight he had fled, leaving Cory Aquino as the only president.

On which government TV channel did Marcos declare on February 24 that he would not step down?

MBS-4. Just before 10 a.m. the screen went blank in the middle of his press conference: rebels had captured the station, and that afternoon it was back on the air for the other side.

Who reopened the captured government TV station on February 24 by announcing it was back 'to serve the people'?

Orly Punzalan. He then called the old ABS-CBN technicians back to work in the studios that Marcos had taken from the network when he declared martial law in 1972.

The EDSA Shrine, the church built to commemorate the revolution, is crowned by a towering bronze statue of whom?

The Virgin Mary. Manila's archdiocese built the shrine in 1989 to honour her as Queen of Peace for a revolt that ended without a battle, and protesters gathered there again in 2001.

Where was Cory Aquino sworn in as president on February 25?

Club Filipino. The rebel generals pressed her to take the oath inside their own camp for safety, but she insisted on a civilian clubhouse long identified with the opposition.

Which justice administered Cory Aquino's oath of office?

Claudio Teehankee. Marcos had twice passed over the court's most senior justice, a frequent dissenter against his rule, for chief justice, and Aquino gave him the post soon after he swore her in.

Who held the Bible at Cory's oath-taking on February 25?

Aurora Aquino. Ninoy's mother had insisted in 1983 that his body be shown without makeup so that people could see 'what they did to my son', and now she held the Bible for his widow.

Which song did Imelda Marcos sing from the palace balcony as a farewell?

Dahil Sa Iyo. 'Because of You' had long been her theme song; when she finished, the Marcoses went back inside, and that night they left the palace for good.

Which US senator told Marcos by phone to 'cut and cut cleanly'?

Paul Laxalt. Reagan's go-between said he spoke only for himself; after a silence Marcos replied, 'I am so very, very disappointed', and that same night he left the palace.

Where did US helicopters first take the Marcos family when they fled Malacañang?

Clark Air Base. American helicopters lifted the family out after dark, and within hours jubilant crowds had forced the gates of the abandoned palace and were wandering through its rooms.

After EDSA, Cory Aquino was named Woman of the Year by which magazine?

Time. Its Woman of the Year for 1986 had called herself a plain housewife and had never held public office before she unseated a president of twenty years.

Who sculpted the 1986 revolution's monument at EDSA and White Plains Avenue?

Eduardo Castrillo. His 1993 monument became a rallying point again in 2016, when protesters gathered at its foot against Marcos's burial in the Heroes' Cemetery.

Who composed 'Magkaisa', recorded by Virna Lisa days after the revolution?

Tito Sotto. He wrote and recorded it in about three days as a call for a divided country to unite, which is what the title means, and his brother Vic sang backup.

Who wrote 'Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo', the all-star anthem recorded weeks after the revolution?

Jim Paredes. The Apo Hiking Society songwriter wrote it just after the revolt for an all-star recording, and its lyrics are now inscribed on a wall of the EDSA Shrine.

The second 'EDSA Revolution', in 2001, drove which president from office?

Joseph Estrada. When senators at his impeachment trial voted to keep a sealed envelope of evidence shut, crowds returned to EDSA, and within four days he had left the palace.

The radio broadcasts of the revolution joined which UNESCO register in 2003?

Memory of the World. The register protects documentary heritage, here the unedited recordings of four days of broadcasts, which UNESCO said had not only documented the uprising but influenced it.

Marcos asked to visit which home province before exile, a request Aquino vetoed?

Ilocos Norte. Aquino's side feared that a stop in his northern stronghold would let loyalist troops rally around him, so she refused, and an American plane flew him out of the country the next morning.

Whom did Marcos defeat to win the presidency in 1965?

Diosdado Macapagal. Marcos had been a leading figure in Macapagal's own Liberal Party, and crossed to the rival Nacionalistas only when the sitting president stood in the way of his nomination.

CBS's Bob Simon said of the 1986 revolt that Americans like to think they taught Filipinos what?

Democracy. 'Well, tonight they are teaching the world,' he added, turning the old colonial lesson around as Marcos fell without a battle.