EDSA I triggered by greed, won by a lie

Edsa I was triggered by greed and was won by a lie.

For four days, Feb. 22-25, 1986, I was at People Power I, as Asiaweek senior correspondent.

On the first day, Feb. 22, 1986, a Saturday, I was lucky to be both in Cebu, for Corazon Aquino’s 4 p.m. civil disobedience rally, and in Manila, 9 p.m., first night of Juan Ponce Enrile’s breakaway coup.

Til midnight of Feb. 22, Enrile had no troops, only two dozen RAM soldiers. His shock troops at Camp Aguinaldo were us, foreign correspondents, numbering about 40.

June Keithley had announced on radio at 7 a.m. of Feb. 24 that the Marcoses had left. It was a lie. In their glee and feeling that finally it was all over, people trooped to Edsa to celebrate. The lie was a psy-war of general Fidel V. Ramos.

The crowds that massed on Edsa on Feb. 24, 1986, Monday, and on Feb. 25, Tuesday, were there not to stage a revolt but to hold a picnic. Cory has no photo addressing the crowds.

The greed arose a few days earlier when a Chinese forex trader violated the peso-dollar trading band imposed by Trade and Industry Secretary Roberto V. Ongpin’s Binondo Central Bank to budget scarce dollar reserves.

The dollar trading violator was arrested and loaded into a van. Unfortunately, he died. The trader happened to be a man of then-Armed Forces chief Fabian C. Ver.

At 11 a.m., Feb. 22, at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ongpin went looking for his security men. He called up Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile who was with the Club 365 at the Atrium in Makati.

Earlier, at 4 a.m. Feb. 22, Ver had 22 of Ongpin’s security men arrested, to be killed at Corregidor island. Led by Mike Asperin, the men were marching in full battle gear and dressed in SWAT uniform in Fort Bonifacio when collared.  Ariel Querubin, the marine officer assigned to arrest the Asperin boys, refused to execute Ongpin’s men.

Enrile thought the arrest of the Ongpin 22, RAM Boys of Col. Gringo Honasan, was part of Marcos’ anti-coup crackdown.

Since 1982, JPE had grown disenchanted. Marcos had become very ill following a botched kidney transplant three years earlier. The defense chief, who had no direct command of AFP troops, had become wary of the palace cabal led by