Memories of Coup
the former president and a great leader of the Philippines, Cory Aquino, passed away last August 1. and of course her presidency was again remembered. and there had been a mention of seven coup d'etat. but out of this seven, i could only remember one. and this one introduced me to the term coup d'etat.
it is december 1989 (if i'm not mistaken, december 1). around 4am, while having breakfast and getting ready for school we heard from the radio (my grandma always listen to the news every morning) that the villamor airbase was attacked. honestly, i did not know what villamor airbase was. i didn't even know that we have an airbase. hehe. afterwards, it was announced that there are no classes. of course we were happy with the news but i didn't know actually why there's no classes.
we lived near camp aguinaldo. you can say the camp is walking distance from our house. that's where we hear mass. since we live near the camp, you can hear helicopters flying, you can see the jets... you will really know that something's wrong and everyone was fearful.
my family and the rest of the neighborhood evacuated the place and we went our own separate ways. we stayed at the house of my mom's friend in tandang sora. my uncle who was left behind recounted that you can hear bombings. and a day or two after the coup ended, we passed by aguinaldo and you can see bullet holes, not only on the walls of the camp but also at the house across the camp. there are still tanks in the vicinity, and inside the camp.
it was a scary experience, and we were not really in the area when the real bombings occur but still it was scary. that is why i can't imagine how those in war zone areas feel.
let's just pray for them. and the family of the soldiers.
