A feature article published two months ago in another newspaper identified the so-called EDSA Shrine located at the corner of EDSA and Ortigas Avenue in Mandaluyong City as a “structure of independence” in the Philippines. It likened the EDSA Shrine to the Statue of Liberty in New York City in the United States and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.

“The statue looks more haunting than affectionate, perhaps to serve as an indicator of future events to come.

The EDSA Shrine is actually a Roman Catholic church built to celebrate the February 1986 popular revolt that ended the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos and the rise to power of President Corazon Aquino. It distinguishes itself from the adjacent shopping mall by a dominating metal statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The statue looks more haunting than affectionate, perhaps to serve as an indicator of future events to come.

Likening the EDSA Shrine to the Statue of Liberty and the Arc de Triomphe is inappropriate.

The American and French monuments are secular in character, which make them genuine symbols of freedom for all Americans and Frenchmen, respectively, regardless of religious affiliation.

In contrast, the EDSA Shrine is a sectarian structure not accessible to everyone and everybody. Because it is more of a Catholic church than a monument to freedom, Protestants and Muslims are not welcome there, except as ordinary visitors during the annual program commemorating Mrs. Aquino’s rise to power every 26th day of February.

To state the obvious, no organized activity may be held at the site without the prior permission of the top clergy in Metropolitan Manila.

During each anniversary of the people power revolt, yellow banners are displayed prominently at the site, although the number of banners has diminished in recent years. Since yellow is the color associated with Mrs. Aquino, her son President Benigno Aquino III, and their blind followers in the Liberal Party (LP), the place has come to be identified with the two ex-presidents and the moribund, opportunistic political party.

To many Filipinos, the EDSA Shrine is a testament to the incompetent and corrupt administrations of Mrs. Aquino and her son.

Mrs. Aquino’s administration was a vindictive government that prized political loyalty over competence and integrity. It was influenced by oligarchs and the Roman Catholic clergy. The administration is known for expanding the operations of gambling casinos throughout the country, and for its intolerance for criticism from no-nonsense journalists like Maximo Soliven and Luis Beltran.

Her administration obligated landed estates to concede to land reform, but at the same time exempted her family’s crown jewel, the vast Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, from the coverage of the law. It was an administration that rejected anything and everything associated with President Marcos, and which abolished the Marcos-created Department of Energy, a foolish decision that plunged the nation into darkness and earned for it the embarrassing moniker of “the power outage capital of the world.”

Relatives were in control of lucrative deals with the government to such an extent that journalists derisively called them Kamag-anak, Inc.

Her son Aquino III also ran a government of unprecedented corruption and incompetence as seen in the pork barrel scam, the metro rail scandals and the mismanagement which led to the massacre of 44 elite policemen tasked to enforce a warrant of arrest in Mamasapano in Maguindanao.

Many Filipinos also consider the EDSA Shrine as the site where an upstart Francis Pangilinan announced bad things about his boss in Malacañang, President Joseph Estrada, during EDSA II. Now a senator, Pangilinan is the (LP) president who served as the campaign manager of the defeated Otso Diretso senatorial ticket in the May 2019 senatorial election.

The EDSA Shrine was also the site where Supreme Court Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. blatantly committed a culpable violation of the Constitution by administering the oath of office as acting President to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and then later changing it to President, even without a valid vacancy in the presidency. Davide owes his successful career to Mrs. Aquino and is, to this day, a rabid supporter of Aquino III and the LP.

Today, the EDSA Shrine is nothing more than a discredited monument of the LP and a testament to failure and folly rather than a “structure of independence” described in that newspaper article.

In short, EDSA is the boulevard of broken dreams, and the EDSA Shrine is its most conspicuous landmark.