When Cardinal Jaime Sin took to the microphone on Radio Veritas on February 22, 1986, and called on Filipinos to gather at EDSA, four institutions answered: the Church, the universities, the press, and civil society. Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel Ramos then broke with the Marcos government, giving the uprising its military backbone. Without their defection, the civilians who filled EDSA would have had no military camps to protect. Together, they helped bring down the Marcos dictatorship. For many Filipinos, it became the nation's finest hour.
Forty years later, that same EDSA filled once more—this time in protest of the son. Between the downfall of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and the ouster of President Joseph Estrada in 2001, EDSA became the nation's enduring symbol of popular protest and political accountability. Thousands of Iglesia ni Cristo members first gathered around the People Power Monument under the banner, "Transparency for a Better Democracy," before concluding the final day of their three-day mobilization at Liwasang Bonifacio after the Quezon City local government revoked the permit for the EDSA gathering. Throughout the rally, an INC spokesman maintained that the movement was not calling for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s resignation, but for accountability.
Yet the grievances voiced by the crowd—corruption, abuse of power, and what it described as "selective justice"—are the same issues that have historically fueled demands for political change on that very ground. The rallies have now ended, but the questions they raised have not. What happens next will determine whether this was merely a protest—or the beginning of something larger.
Senator Rodante Marcoleta, a Duterte-aligned lawmaker facing a threatened plunder complaint over allegations involving undisclosed campaign contributions and omissions in his 2025 SALN, became the immediate flashpoint. But the crowd's call against what it described as "selective justice" reached far beyond the legal situation of a single senator.
The political test now begins. Will the threatened case against Marcoleta proceed, or will it quietly fade after the rallies have ended? Either outcome will carry political consequences. At the same time, where has this three-day mobilization led? Has it simply expressed public frustration, or has it laid the foundation for a broader political movement? While the Iglesia ni Cristo consistently maintained that its objective was accountability rather than regime change, many now wonder whether these demonstrations marked the beginning of a larger challenge to the Marcos administration—or merely the opening chapter of a much longer political struggle.
That legacy of EDSA has, in the view of its critics, been surrendered by many who once claimed to defend it. Juan Ponce Enrile spent his final years as Chief Presidential Legal Counsel to President Marcos Jr., serving in that role until his death on November 13, 2025. He did not merely reconcile with the Marcos family; he returned to public service under the son of the president he helped oust in 1986 and remained in that position until his last days.
Nowhere is that reversal more striking than within the Liberal Party. Franklin Drilon aligned with the Marcos-Romualdez congressional majority. Kiko Pangilinan, who warned during the 2022 campaign that a Marcos presidency would reverse EDSA's gains, returned to the Senate in 2025 and joined that same majority. Senator Bam Aquino, nephew of Corazon Aquino and first cousin of Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, won a Senate seat while carrying the Aquino name and legacy, only to later join the Senate majority alongside political allies of the very forces the Aquino family had historically opposed.
The historical weight of those choices is not abstract. Grenades thrown at the Liberal Party's 1971 Plaza Miranda rally nearly wiped out its senatorial slate; President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was widely blamed at the time, although responsibility for the attack has long remained disputed. Martial Law followed a year later, and Benigno Aquino Jr. spent nearly eight years in detention. For many critics, the decision of prominent Liberal Party figures to support a Marcos administration today is more than political realignment. They see it as a repudiation of the party's own history.
Kris Aquino met with President Marcos Jr. and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos in March 2026. The following month, former Vice President Leni Robredo publicly thanked the President for a ₱500-million allocation for Naga City. To critics, these gestures, together with the broader political alignments that followed, reflect a marked shift from the post-EDSA opposition that once defined their movement. They also point to civil society organizations whose founders opposed the first Marcos administration but whose present focus has been directed chiefly at Vice President Sara Duterte. Last continuation..
The administration's legislative allies, critics argue, deserve the same level of scrutiny. From July 2022 to May 2025, about ₱545 billion was released for flood-control projects. The Commission on Audit has reported deficiencies and irregularities in several projects, while public records show that fifteen contractors received contracts totaling about ₱100 billion. Former House Speaker Martin Romualdez oversaw the House during this period of record appropriations. Representative Zaldy Co, the former Appropriations Committee chair, has been charged before the Sandiganbayan, while a former aide has testified under oath to transporting cash-filled luggage to a residence associated with Romualdez. Those charges and testimonies remain matters of public record, and the cases continue through the judicial process.
The four institutions that once stood at the heart of EDSA, critics contend, have responded unevenly. The impeachment proceedings against Vice President Duterte received sustained public attention, while testimony concerning alleged cash-sharing in the Senate drew comparatively brief coverage. Critics argue that the press has pursued allegations involving Duterte with greater intensity than those involving the Romualdez-Co network.
The rally now unfolding on that ground is the clearest rebuke yet of that pattern. Malacañang has dismissed it as no threat, even as the President warned that joining a protest does not exempt anyone from a pending case—a warning critics say has not been applied with equal force to Martin Romualdez or Zaldy Co, whose cases are already before the courts, while the threatened case against Senator Rodante Marcoleta has yet to be filed. That asymmetry, rather than the legal situation of any one senator, is the central issue. A parallel gathering of retired military officers under the United People's Initiative, calling for the same accountability on the same ground, underscores that this grievance is not confined to any single political bloc.
This is EDSA once again serving the purpose for which it is remembered: providing a place where citizens demand accountability from those in power, regardless of political affiliation. To many, the scene stands as an uncomfortable reminder for institutions that marched there in 1986 but have since grown quieter. It also underscores that the call for accountability belongs to no single political camp. Today, Duterte-aligned supporters are making that demand on the very avenue where the Yellow coalition once made it against the father.
Cardinal Jaime Sin called the nation to EDSA to confront those who abused public trust. In 1986, the Church, the universities, the press, and civil society answered together. Today, EDSA itself still answers, even where some of the institutions that once defined it have fallen silent. The question that remains is whether they will recognize what many see as their unfinished work—or continue standing beside those accused of betraying it.
• __________________ DR. DARWIN T. RASUL III OpinYon Columnist • Expert-Consultant, European Union Germany • ARMM's Cabinet Assistant Secretary (Asec.) • Editor-in-Chief, ARMM's Official Publication • Legislative Researcher and Consultant, Senate of the Philippines • Book Author • Feature Writer
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