The 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution is real. About two million Filipinos joined the four-day nonviolent protest that brought down the Marcos dictatorship.
Senatorial aspirant and suspended lawyer Larry Gadon wrongly insisted that the historical event is not a people power revolution because he said less than 300,000 people attended.
In an interview on April 16 with Apollo Quiboloy on Sonshine Media Network Inc.’s (SMNI) YouTube channel, Gadon, responding to a comment on the ouster of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, said at the 1:36:15 mark:
Yang people power revolution na iyan, fake ‘yan. Dahil ilan lang naman ang tao don, baka wala pa ngang 300,000 (That people power revolution is fake because how many people were there? Maybe not even 300,000).
The Official Gazette placed at two million the number of Filipinos who protested along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA) in Metro Manila and in other cities against the cheating in the snap presidential elections and Marcos’s strongman rule from Feb. 22 to 25, 1986.
Feb. 25, the day Marcos and his family fled the country, has been declared a special holiday since 1993 during former President Fidel Ramos’ first year in office. But the holiday declaration depends on the sitting president.
In 2015, former President Benigno Aquino Jr. declared it as a special holiday for schools only.
In October 2021, President Rodrigo Duterte proclaimed the EDSA People Power Revolution as a special nonworking holiday for 2022 saying it “restored democracy and ushered political, social and economic reforms in the country.”
The YouTube video has generated over 254,000 views, about 13,000 likes and 1,200 comments as of writing. (GD)