It has been thirty-eight years since the peaceful People Power Revolution toppled the despotic rule that had been dubbed by Primitivo Mijares as the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. Over the years, the spirit of that People Power Revolution had dwindled as the commemoration had been anchored on that highway named Epifanio de los Santos Avenue or EDSA for brevity.

It was all wrong from the very beginning and the wronging went on up to the present. The blunder of Mr. Marcos and his cohorts in acceding to call a snap election for a fresh mandate, relying so much on his magic that kept him in power for two decades. He miscalculated everything, from the use of guns, goons and gold (his famous 3Gs) in the elections, to massive cheating in the counting of votes that culminated in the walkout of computer tabulators who could no longer bear the systematized cheating, to the call for civil disobedience, up to the peaceful convergence of the multitude that staged the bloodless People Power Revolution of 1986. The wrongs of the conjugal dictatorship were terminated by a people that rose in peaceful struggle against the abuses of the dictator.

The struggle against the abuses of the dictatorship is not the People Power Revolution which happened at EDSA. It was a long battle fought by the nameless men and women who resisted the dictatorship all throughout the dark years of martial law. Thousands of these courageous Filipinos were maimed for life and the less fortunate ones were sent to the deep abyss of no return. Those who disappeared during the dark years had never attained justice in their struggle for change and in the pages of history as well. Those who survived are still fighting for justice both in the proper place in history and in obtaining the compensation that the courts awarded for their sufferings under martial law. Even the penultimate battle that led to the fall of the dictator and the catapulting of Cory Aquino to the presidency was not an overnight event at EDSA but a long battle that took place across the nation.

The first People Power Revolution in 1986 was a demonstration of the Filipino courage to change an abusive dictatorial regime by peaceful bloodless means. It caught world attention and became a model for other peoples in various countries that wanted change and democracy by way of peaceful means. This world renowned event placed our country in the global political map for its being a bloodless revolution. But that fame would soon get lost along memory lane among our people and before the world. That event ended over two decades of dictatorship. It is unfortunate that thirty-eight years after, a magical president who is the son and namesake of the dictator is now in power and is subtly taking steps to erase the memory of the 1986 peaceful People Power revolution.
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“THE greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled; but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Mt 23,11-12).

Words of Christ, addressed to his disciples and now to us, that clearly tell us about the crucial role of humility in our life. It’s the virtue that would truly make us great, since it would liken us to Christ who made himself a servant of all of us, and whose humility, expressed all the way to the cross, led to the victory of his resurrection, opening the door of our salvation.

We need to do everything to keep ourselves humble, especially in these rapidly changing times when all sorts of complexities and complications keep growing. Humility enables us to be flexible and adaptable to the varying environments and circumstances of our life, while anchoring us in the foundation of our Christian faith.

Indeed, humility fosters our capacity to be more keenly discerning in a world that is becoming less and less black and white, and more and more grey and multi-colored, with all sorts of shades and nuances to contend with.

With humility, we would be willing, like Christ, to be misunderstood, to suffer, etc., if only to keep ourselves in the hold of charity and mercy that in the end are what truly matter in our life.

In other words, humility assures us to have the righteousness proper to us, the righteousness that channels the very righteousness of God, and not the righteousness akin to that of the scribes and Pharisees of old.

It’s a humility that enables us to be slow to judge as well as to anger, but quick to forgive and even willing to bear the consequences of whatever mistakes, injustices and all sorts of evil that others may inflict on us. It’s even willing to repair whatever damage is caused by the mistakes of others. It’s what makes us generous and magnanimous in our relation with others, irrespective of how they are to us.

In helps us to be constant and persevering in pursuing our real goals in life despite some adverse or unfavorable situations and circumstances, knowing what and how to give up certain things that may need to be given up, but never sacrificing what is truly essential in life which, in the end, is to be charitable with everyone.

Yes, humility helps preserve whatever goodness we have, whatever we have received from God. And if we happen to lose that goodness, it is also what helps us to recover it, since it facilitates our asking for forgiveness and our trust in God’s ever-available mercy. It keeps us always hopeful and confident, despite our limitations and our errors.

We need to understand that humility involves giving our will to the will of God. It is a giving away that actually is not a loss at all but an immense gain for us. That’s because that is how we have been created, how we have been designed. Without God, like a branch cut off from the vine, we just die and are capable only of doing evil.

And precisely because Christ did only what his Father commanded him to do, he managed to recover us from the state of sin and restore us to the state of grace. How truly important it is to be humble! It is what would enable us to obey God’s will, and to do so irrespective of the great cost in terms of suffering it may involve.