The historic 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution will be celebrated outside Metro Manila for the year 2014. For the very first time in nearly three decades, the EDSA anniversary will be celebrated in Cebu City.
According to the EDSA Anniversary organizers on Thursday, the festivities marking the February 22-25, 1986 would be held not on EDSA (Epifanio de los Santos Avenue), the place where it happened but it will be celebrated in the faraway south of Manila.
EDSA Anniversary (Photo Credit: Balita.Ph)
The organizers revealed to the media that celebration in Cebu City is partly to accommodate President Aquino’s wish “to be one with the people.” The EDSA anniversary is a celebration of the successful uprising of the Filipino people who ended former President Ferdinand Marcos’ dictatorial rule in the Philippines.
Based upon the details provided by Malacanang, unlike in the past President Aquino will commemorate the 28th anniversary of the 1986 revolution by holding “town hall” meetings with the victims of super typhoon “Pablo” and “Yolanda” together with the victims of the 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the Visayas region.
The celebration of EDSA Revolution in Cebu is part of the national government’s project “solidarity with victims” of calamities in Visayas. According to Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, the President “wants to be one with the people, especially those who were affected by the natural calamities” the spokesperson said during a press briefing.
During the EDSA Anniversary celebration in Cebu the President will held a meeting called “pulong-bayan” that would giver President Aquino with a “good opportunity” to show his “solidarity with those people affected” by the natural disasters.
On the eve of the EDSA rites in Cebu City, the President will then fly to Cateel, Davao Oriental Province, the place affected by typhoon Pablo and then he will visit Loon, Bohol, one of the municipalities hit by earthquake last October 2013.
After a traditional EDSA “salubungan (encounter)” at the Cebu Provincial Capitol. The President will proceed to Bantayan Island, then to Leyte and Samar Provinces, which were devastated by Yolanda in November.