My rationale for EDSA '86

YOU cannot go to EDSA. Marcos is finished but it might be dangerous to go to EDSA so you better stay home.”

- JOSE BAYANI BAYLON

Those were my dad's "instructions" to me after February 23, when he learned that I had been at the gates of Camp Crame in support of my then-boss, Assemblyman Renato L. Cayetano, and his boss, Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile. I remember coming home to change, and there was my dad, a Marcos voter to the end, accepting the fate that was inevitable but not wanting to see any of his children (me especially) ending up in some danger should the "peaceful revolution" turn violent.

And it wasn't an unfounded fear. The Armed Forces remained split between those still recognizing the hierarchy, starting from Marcos as Commander-in-Chief to Fabian Ver as AFP Chief of Staff, and those siding with Enrile and Vice Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos, mainly the young officers who made up the core of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM). Some rogue faction of either group could become trigger-happy, or even some elements of the Communist Party-New Peoples' Army could take advantage of the situation, and before you know it, there would be shooting on the streets and casualties everywhere.

I sensed the pain in my father's words, as well as some sense of uncertainty as to what a post-Marcos scenario would look like. Not wanting to stress him further, I retired to my room at our assigned house on Roces Ave. of the UP Campus and kept quiet.