In February 1986 I was 6 years old. I was totally oblivious to what was happening in our country then, especially since I lived in a small city in the province. My parents were probably paranoid on what was going on especially since our family were known supporters of Marcos. I remember seeing those black and white photo albums in the big old house with pictures of my grandma and Imelda, along with other friends in happier days of the ’60s. I was told that my grandma was once Imelda’s music teacher in Holy Infant College. My grandparents were close friends with one of Imelda’s brothers, Kokoy, who was then the governor in our province.
When the Edsa revolt happened in Manila, I was minding my own business as 6 year old, playing with my brothers inside the household. We grew up in a big old house with our grandparents and we were sort of well off then. I’m not sure what day it was but sometime before or after Marcos fled the country, a strange thing occurred in our big old house. There was a huge truck that arrived and a group of people started unloading a lot of stuff and putting it inside our house. I thought we had won the sweepstakes or we got a hell lot richer because these stuff that they unloaded were expensive. A really huge TV set, a grandfather clock a lot of other expensive appliances and furniture that I didn’t really pay attention to because a kid my age then would be more interested in the giant TV. Among the things that arrived were huge locked suitcases that were to be kept hidden in a locked room. My brothers and I were fascinated with the sudden influx of stuff in our home. We were very happy to see the giant TV. I guessed it had a 50-inch screen and it was from the USA. It was the 80’s and if you had a TV that big in the small city I lived in, you were awfully rich. For some reason, I began to learn that the stuff wasn’t really ours because our household help told us not to touch it or even plug the big TV in. The stuff were not to be touched as per our Grandfather’s orders. He arrived from his work as a RTC judge in Baybay, and he was not happy to see all those new things in our big house. A few days later, a truck came by again and a group of people took the stuff that was not really ours.
Years later, I found out that those things belonged to one of Imelda’s siblings who was fleeing as well, and they wanted to prevent their stuff from being sequestered by the newly formed government. My grandpa ordered to have those things removed because they put it in our home without his permission. I guess he didn’t want our family to be included in the mess that was going on. My dad laments that he should have kept one of the big suitcases for it could have been full of money.
My brothers and I weren’t disappointed with the loss of the huge TV, because a few years later after that incident, our grandpa bought a new Sony TV, but only 27 inches, imported from another country because it had a 110v only power input. But it was big enough for us, and we watched a lot of great movies in it like James Bond movies and Cannonball Run. That TV lasted more than a decade, for the last time I saw it on was in 2004. It stopped a couple years later when my brother Dane plugged it in a 220v socket.