People Power at 40: Silence from Malacañang

When Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was but a leading candidate for president in the 2022 elections, one of the many questions he left unanswered was how his administration would handle the anniversary of a revolution that toppled his dictator-father and dislodged the latter from a two-decade stay in Malacañang Palace. 

More than halfway through his presidency, and with four People Power Revolution anniversaries under his watch, the second Marcos administration seems to have finally found its chosen route: silence. 

No statement came from Malacañang on February 25, the 40th anniversary of a bloodless revolution that restored democracy to the Philippines. Silence is also how Marcos and Malacañang handled the People Power anniversaries in 2024 and 2025. 

It’s a stark contrast to 2023, or the first People Power Revolution anniversary under Marcos Jr., when he sent a wreath to the People Power Monument and issued a message of “reconciliation.” Back in 2023, with a mere eight months into his presidency, Marcos said in a prepared message that he was “one with the nation in remembering” the EDSA People Power Revolution. 

In the days leading up to the 40th anniversary of the revolution, Palace Press Officer Undersecretary Claire Castro floated the possibility of Marcos being open to a law to make the People Power Revolution Anniversary a holiday. Yet, the President himself has not said anything about this, so far.

Pressed on the significance of the revolution, Castro repeated points she’d made the year prior.

“It’s part of the history, hindi ito mabubura; hindi mabubura kung anong naganap noon. Ang katapangan ng mga Pilipino, ang pagtanggap sa pangyayari, hindi po iyan mabubura sa history,” she told a February 25 press conference. 

(It’s part of the history, it cannot be erased; you cannot erase what happened then. The courage of the Filipino people and acceptance of what happened cannot be erased from history.) 

Over four days in 1986, Filipinos across the country held peaceful protests. It was the decision of then-military vice chief of staff Fidel Ramos and then-defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile to withdraw their support from Ferdinand E. Marcos and the subsequent call of then-Manila archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin for the people to support the two that triggered what would balloon to millions of ordinary Filipinos to flood the streets of EDSA. Protests were also staged across the country, the culmination of years of resistance and oppression by a dictatorship.

The current president’s father ruled the Philippines beginning 1965, then placed the country under Martial Law in 1972. Although martial rule was lifted in 1981, human rights abuses continued to abound in the country — dissidents and political rivals were jailed, disappeared, or killed. The Marcos clan and its associates also stole from government coffers — the consequences of which the clan and their cronies continue to battle in courts here and abroad, and a fact the current president seldom confronts head on. 

Despite many different presidents since the ouster of the first Marcos president proclaiming the importance of remembering the revolution and its ideals, its celebration has never been codified into law. It is always up to the sitting president to declare February 25, through a proclamation, a non-working day or a holiday.

Under the late Benigno Aquino III, son of democracy icons Ninoy and Corazon Aquino, February 25 was a special holiday only for schools from 2011 to 2015. The president before him, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, typically declared February 25 a special non-working holiday. 

It was only in his last year as president, in 2016, that Aquino declared February 25 a special non-working holiday. Marcos’ direct predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, classified February 25 as a special non-working holiday in all his six years. But it was also Duterte who authorized the burial of Ferdinand E. Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. 

This year, Marcos declared February 25, 2026 as a special working day. 

The 40th anniversary of the peaceful uprising comes at a challenging time for Marcos — his administration still weathering the storm of a flood control corruption scandal that, in part, has led to changes in personnel, as well as policy changes in his government. 

The anniversary of People Power also happens to be sandwiched by the confirmation of charges against Duterte, the very man who considered the elder Marcos a hero, before the International Criminal Court. 

Calls for accountability echoed across the archipelago on February 25 — despite the day being nothing more than a “special working day.” 

Not a single peep was heard from Marcos himself. The next day, the President carried on with his engagements in Cebu province with nary a mention of the event.

One wonders if, like the thousands who joined protests to commemorate the revolution this year, the younger Marcos also looked back and reflected on what it’s meant for him and the country. — Rappler.com