Part of the "EDSA parking lot" that had people ranting all day on social media. BERNARD TESTA, INTERAKSYON.COM
"We apologize to our countrymen who were stuck in traffic as a result of yesterday's road closure," Communication Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said at Thursday's Palace press briefing,
President Aquino offered a wreath at the People Power Monument in Quezon City in the morning, then proceeded to the Shrine of Mary Queen of Peace, Our Lady of EDSA in Ortigas for the holy mass celebrated by Archbishop of Manila Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle.
Coloma said he heard Chairman Francis Tolentino of the Metro Manila Development Authority explain earlier that they had issued an advisory about the road closure two weeks ago, but acknowledged that perhaps the advice for motorists to take alternate routes had not been disseminated well enough.
Govt simply paranoid - activists
Militant groups, however, saw something more sinister than a mere problem of MMDA communicating the traffic advisories.
Anakpawis party list said the police and the Aquino administration were out to prevent "the peaceful EDSA 1 People Power commemoration by different progressive groups" who had announced earlier plans to organize human chains and marches on EDSA.
Many of the groups were calling on the President to either resign or at least come clean on the Mamasapano debacle, where 44 Special Action Force (SAF) members sent to Maguindanao to get Malaysian terrorist Marwan ended up engaging in battle the Moro rebels, despite the ongoing peace process.
Lamenting the "paranoia" of the government setting up obstacles to blunt the EDSA Day protests, the group Anakpawis said in a statement Thursday: “In February 1986 thousands upon thousands of ordinary masses from different walks of life trooped to EDSA calling for Ferdinand Marcos to step down. But yesterday; people who wanted to participate in the EDSA 1 commemoration were blocked by flanks of police force in Boni Serrano Street near Camp Crame. It also set up another blockade near the EDSA shrine in Ortigas."
President Aquino "obviously is in paranoia state, taking yesterday’s simple activity as threat to his administration,” said Anakpawis party list Rep. Fernando Hicap.
Hicap also said that the "lowest turnout "of yesterday’s EDSA crowd in Ortigas "only shows the exclusivity and elite character of the exercise led by Aquino. His celebration of EDSA 1 was a farce and totally shameful to all those who fought against martial law and genuine democracy.”
After 29 years farmers are still denied of their right to land, workers’ salary did not significantly raise while the number of jobless Filipinos rose to 12 million under his term, Hicap claimed.
Compounding Aquino’s shortcomings were "his criminal neglect of calamity victims and the botched Mamasapano encounter that led to the death of his 44 PNP-SAF men and civilians,” the party-list lawmaker said.
"As an EDSA 1 beneficiary; Aquino failed to use its inspiration to come up with essential reforms in the government that will serve the interest and welfare of the ordinary masses,” said Hicap.
He reminded the Cojuangcos and Aquinos - two political clans that have seen two members ascend to the presidency and several others elected or appointed to key posts since 1986 - that the EDSA 1 uprising "is not all about the Aquinos and other players of the said historical event in the country. Rather, it is all about the collective effort of the ordinary people who defy and fought martial law."
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