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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-11/thomasites-sm.webp" alt ="Thomasites in 1900s" />
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(Thomasites and their students in Benguet, 1900s)
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The group was waving a singular flag on which were written the words: "August Twenty One Movement ATOM." The group was calling for the downfall of the government of President <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/595/today-in-philippine-history-september-11-1917-ferdinand-e-marcos-was-born-in-sarrat-ilocos-norte" class="news_link">Ferdinand E. Marcos</a>. That augured what eventually <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/897/today-in-philippine-history-january-25-1933-cory-aquino-was-born-in-manila" class="news_link">Corazon C. Aquino</a> would brag as the "bloodless revolt" that brought down the Marcos dictatorship.


Galunggong skyrocketed to ₱80 per kilogram from the low ₱28 immediately before Cory assumed the presidency. Meralco, which Marcos had placed in the name of the Filipino people all throughout his rule beginning upon the declaration of martial law in 1972, was restored to the private ownership of the Lopezes, together with the retrieval also by the Lopezes of ABS-CBN.

Meantime, immediately released were Jose Maria Sison, chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and Bernabe Buscayno alias Kumander Dante, chief of the New People's Army (NPA), who were both captured and incarcerated by Marcos together with Ninoy Aquino since 1977. Since Sison's release and bloody re-assumption of revolutionary leadership, the CPP-NPA-NDF (National Democratic Front) has shifted back to utter terroristic activities that in due time would divest its insurgency of any pretensions to a legitimate people's uprising.


Come to think of it, the Sisonite insurgency has been the major factor contributing to the underdevelopment of the Philippines over the past more than half century. From being already second to Japan in economic terms, the Philippines fell into the cellar among Asean nations. It is this pitiful condition of the country which President Duterte has been striving to lift.


But where did this condition begin in the first place?


In the August Twenty One Movement!


Oh, the curse of August 21 upon the nation!


At the start of the colonization by America of the nation, the <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2762/today-in-philippine-history-august-21-1901-the-thomasites-arrived-to-establish-a-new-public-school-system-switching-to-english-from-spanish" class="news_link">Thomasites</a> arrived in the Philippines. What were the Thomasites? They were American teachers sent to, in the reckoning of US President William Mackinley, "civilize the Philippine natives." The American aggression, which claimed some 200,000 Filipino lives, actually not only subjugated Philippine sovereignty to the United States but also killed the civilization the brown race was already enjoying even long before the earlier Spanish colonization began in 1521. The Thomasites succeeded in erasing from the Filipinos their ancestral roots and in their stead implanted the now continuing American culture, in words, thought and deed.


The Thomasites crushed the Filipino soul.


When did the Thomasites arrive in the Philippines? August 21, 1901!


How ironic that in the progression of history, August 21 seems to be a harbinger of horror for the Philippines.


On August 21,1971, <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/general-blogs/1741/the-connection-of-the-plaza-miranda-bombing-in-1971-and-the-assassination-of-ninoy-in-1983-that-happened-both-on-august-21" class="news_link">two grenades exploded in the Liberal Party miting de avance</a> (final political rally) in Plaza Miranda, which killed two vendors and seriously wounded more than a hundred others, including the entire senatorial ticket of the Liberal Party - except one, the "star of the show," the secretary-general of the Liberal Party, Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr. In one hearing of the Senate in 1989, former CPP secretary-general Ruben Guevarra revealed that the Plaza Miranda bombing was ordered by Jose Maria Sison. Who is Sison? He conspired with Ninoy Aquino in the establishment of the CPP in 1968.


More than 10 years after the Plaza Miranda bombing, August 21 stood out again as a decisive point in the country's history. On that day in 1983, Ninoy, against all expressed warning from various sectors, executed his widely touted historic return from the United States to perform what could be the most ingenious magic in the history of Philippine politics: euthanasia (what the Greeks call "good death" for mercy killing) in order to achieve the heights of heroic martyrdom. A bullet to his skull snuffed out the life of Ninoy - and thus enshrined him as the hero who intoned, "The Filipino is worth dying for."


It might be asked, of what use is one killing himself when he won't live to achieve his obsession to be president of the Philippines?


Oh, yes? Not only the widow of Ninoy had become president of the land as fruit of that self-inflicted death. The son became president after her death. And now increasingly getting similarly aspiring is the youngest daughter.

August 21 seems to be a precursor of horror for the Philippines