We didn’t live happily ever after

Every year in September, a fairy tale is told: A Dark Lord imposed his will upon a hapless people, but then a messiah sacrificed his life to embolden Filipinos to topple the evil regime in 1986.

It’s an old storyline reinforced over recent years by movies such as the Lord of the Rings and the Star Wars series. But reality is always, and in all ways, complex. And after all, you never read in fairy tales things like class structures and exploited peasants.