How to Erase a Revolution: If I Were in Power, How Would I Make Filipinos Forget EDSA 1986?

History isn’t erased in an instant. It fades, piece by piece, moment by moment, until one day, no one remembers why it mattered. If I were in power, and assuming it was my father who was overthrown, how would I make sure EDSA 1986 disappeared from the memory of the people? It starts with a whisper. A joke. A lesson omitted. Then it becomes something no one dares to speak about. This is how I would do it.

The coffee today is different.

Maybe it’s the beans. Maybe it’s the brewing. But something about it feels off—like an old, familiar taste that’s just a little wrong. You can’t put your finger on it, but you know it’s not the same.

History works the same way.

It never disappears all at once. It changes slightly, then slightly more, until one day, it’s unrecognizable. The details are the same, but the flavor is different. The bitterness is gone. The strength diluted. What’s left is something palatable, something easier to swallow.

That’s how you erase a revolution.

EDSA 1986 still lingers in the minds of Filipinos, a reminder of a time when power slipped, when the streets became a voice, when silence was broken. But what if it could be forgotten? Not just rewritten, but erased—slowly, deliberately, until it fades like an old story that no one cares to retell.

If I were in power, and assuming it was my father who had been overthrown, I wouldn’t erase EDSA overnight. I wouldn’t need to.

I would just change the taste.

A little at a time.

Until one day, Filipinos take a sip of history and wonder if the revolution ever mattered at all.

Subliminal Erasure: Soft Influence, Psychological Warfare

People don’t fight to remember what they don’t care about. That’s the first step—making EDSA 1986 seem like something that belongs to the past, something that doesn’t matter anymore.

It starts with the way people talk about it. Make it sound tired. Old. A story that’s been told too many times, worn out like an overplayed song that nobody listens to anymore.

And then, fill the silence with something else. Keep the people entertained. Give them distractions—celebrity scandals, viral trends, political circus acts—an impeachment. Keep them watching but never thinking.

When the anniversary of EDSA rolls around, let it happen, but make it smaller. Let the TV specials air, but shorten them. Give it airtime, but not too much. Eventually, people will stop noticing how little of it remains.

History fades best when it’s replaced.

If people must celebrate something, give them something new. New heroes. New events. A new reason to be proud of the country that has nothing to do with the past. If they’re waving flags, it doesn’t matter what the flag stands for—just as long as it’s not for EDSA.

A cup of coffee, once left untouched, grows cold. It sits there, forgotten, until someone finally pours it down the drain. That’s how EDSA disappears—not through force, not through bans, but by making sure nobody cares enough to keep it warm.

Systematic Revision: Reshaping History, One Edit at a Time

Memories don’t need to be erased. They just need to be rewritten.

Start with the books. If history is taught differently, then eventually, people will believe a different version of it. EDSA 1986 doesn’t have to be erased from textbooks overnight—it only needs to be reframed. A peaceful protest? No. A destabilization attempt, an orchestrated move to seize power, a mistake.

Slowly, shift the focus. Teach the younger generations about economic progress, infrastructure projects, the stability that was lost. Emphasize order. Frame the past as a time of discipline, a time when the country was moving forward, until everything was suddenly disrupted.

Change the way teachers speak about it. Make them hesitant. Uncertain. Let them worry about whether they’re “teaching the right version” of history. The less confident they are, the less seriously students will take it.

Then, control what people find. Make sure anyone searching for EDSA 1986 online stumbles upon the “correct” version first. Fill search engines with articles, videos, and accounts that plant doubt. Was it really as massive as they said? Did the people truly rise up, or was it all staged? If enough sources say otherwise, who’s to say what’s real?

But history is more than what’s written. It’s what people see, what they touch, what surrounds them every day. That, too, can change.

The faces of EDSA—remove them from money. No need for heroes, no need for reminders. Replace them with something neutral, something safe. Landmarks, animals, anything but people who could make future generations ask who they were and what they did.

Roads, buildings, airports—rename them. Not all at once, but slowly, gradually. Each new sign, each new label erases a piece of the past. Until one day, the names that once filled history books exist only in the memories of those too old to matter.

A generation raised on a different history will believe a different truth.

And when they do, EDSA 1986 will be nothing more than a story. A story that can be debated, doubted, or dismissed entirely.

Social & Cultural Suppression: Making Remembrance Unpopular

You don’t have to ban something if you can make people ashamed of it.

Those who still talk about EDSA 1986? Mock them. Pay trolls to ridicule them online. Once the mockery begins, others will follow. The bandwagon effect will do the rest—turning them into the punchline of every joke, the subject of every sarcastic comment. Nobody wants to be on the losing side of history, and if you make EDSA look like a joke, even those who once believed in it will hesitate before speaking up.

But the real move? Get those who stood against my father to talk. Not to challenge me, but to sit down and "set the record straight." Let them talk about what happened, but guide the conversation. Ask the right questions. Plant just enough doubt.

Make them reconsider the details. Were things really as bad as people say? Was the revolution truly as spontaneous as history claims? Maybe, just maybe, there was another side to the story.

And once they start speaking a different version of the truth, keep them close. Keep them on my side. Because so long as they are willing, they can be used. They will say what I need them to say, and they will say it with the authority of someone who was there. And if the ones who lived through it are rewriting history themselves, then who is left to challenge the new version?

The revolution cannot survive if those who led it no longer defend it.

Then, take it a step further.

Movies. Television. Entertainment shapes memory better than textbooks ever could. Let those who produce films tell my family’s story—not the one the old newspapers wrote, but the one I want remembered. Give them a reason to make it. Access. Funding. Protection. Let them turn my mother into a tragic figure—graceful, dignified, a woman who loved her country but was unfairly demonized.

The poor gal has been vilified for decades. It’s time to fix that.

Tell stories about strength. Sacrifice. Let the people see my family as human. If they watch enough of it, if they see it enough times, eventually, sympathy will take root. Doubt will creep in. Maybe they were misunderstood. Maybe they weren’t so bad. Maybe, just maybe, history was unfair to them.

Once the films are made, once the documentaries have aired, then the final touch—make the other side unwatchable.

Flood streaming services, movie theaters, and television networks with my version of history. Let their films struggle for funding, let their voices be lost in the noise. If their documentaries ever get made, make sure they are dismissed as propaganda. Censor what needs to be censored. Block what needs to be blocked. Let them be forgotten before they are even heard.

And if that’s not enough, bury the conversation entirely.

If anyone dares to bring up EDSA, drown them out with memes, jokes, arguments, and endless distractions. Make the idea of remembering exhausting, not worth the trouble. Convince the younger generation that it wasn’t a fight for freedom—it was just politics. Just a power grab. Just another event in history that doesn’t affect their lives today.

And if they believe that, they won’t care enough to defend it.

The best part? You don’t even have to force them to forget.

They’ll do it on their own.

Direct Repression: Fear, Intimidation, and the Death of Memory

When soft influence isn’t enough, when distractions fail, when some still refuse to forget—there is only one way left.

Make remembering dangerous.

It starts with the monuments. The plaques. The street names that still bear the weight of history. Not all at once, not suddenly, but piece by piece. A quiet renaming. A road rebranded. A statue "relocated" for development projects. Until one day, there are no markers left to remind people that EDSA 1986 ever mattered.

Then, go after the words.

Laws against "historical distortion" sound good on paper. Who wouldn’t want to protect the truth? But the truth is decided by those who hold power. Make it illegal to spread the "wrong" version of history, the version that paints my father’s fall as justified. Criminalize it under national security. Frame it as an attack on unity. A betrayal of the country itself.

If done right, people won’t just forget.

They’ll be afraid to remember.

And if there’s one country that has perfected this, it’s China.

They erased Tiananmen Square. Not physically—the place still exists. But ask the people about what happened there, and they will hesitate. They will look around before answering. Some will say they don’t know. Some will act as if it never happened at all.

Not because it wasn’t real.

But because remembering has consequences.

The journalists. The educators. The activists who refuse to move on. Let a few of them go to court, let a few of them be fined, let a few of them be made examples of. It doesn’t take much—just enough to make the rest afraid. If speaking about EDSA 1986 carries risk, fewer will be willing to speak at all.

A whisper. A joke. A lesson omitted.

Then it becomes policy. Then it becomes law.

And finally, it becomes something no one dares to remember.

The Final Sip: A Question for You

The coffee is still the same. Or at least, that’s what they’ll say.

But is it?

The flavor is different now—smoother, easier to swallow, no sharpness left to make you stop and think. Maybe the beans were changed. Maybe the process was altered, little by little, until what you’re drinking now is nothing like what it used to be.

And if no one told you, would you even notice?

History works the same way. It isn’t erased overnight. It fades, reshaped by the hands of those who know how to control the story. What once was bitter becomes palatable. What once was undeniable becomes something debatable. Until one day, the truth that was once so clear is nothing more than a version of events, open to interpretation.

So let me ask you—was there anything in this Morning Coffee Thoughts that felt familiar?