After 30 years, why the indifference to EDSA 1?

BEFORE daybreak of Feb. 24, 1986, the rebels holding fort at Camp Crame were bracing for ground and air attacks from forces loyal to President Marcos. I was then with the defunct Veritas Newsmagazine and all media men there learned that the loyalist forces had dispersed using tear gas the crowd at Santolan near Camp Aguinaldo.

The crowd was meant to provide a buffer zone between the loyalists and the rebels and with the dispersal, an attack by loyalists was deemed imminent. Marines led by Col. Braulio Balbas were positioned along Camp Aguinaldo facing Camp Crame with their tanks. Then Lt. Gen. Fidel V. Ramos was appealing thru radio to Marcos and Gen. Fabian Ver, the armed forces chief of staff, to call off the attack. Everybody in Crame was tense. The rebel forces’ armaments were no match to the tanks and numerical superiority of the loyalist forces.