Even as he recalled the travails of the victims of the Plaza Miranda bombing in 1971, survivor and former Manila Mayor Mel Lopez warned power-hungry politicians that Filipinos will not stand for the wanton trampling of democracy and freedom.

In his biography entitled Politics and Principle, Lopez recounted the chilling events on the night of August 21, 1971, where nine were killed while 98 others were injured when two hand grenades were lobbed on the stage during a Liberal Party miting de avance in Quiapo, Manila.

“I saw the grenade hit a wire and land in front of the stage. Then the joyful shouts of the crowd welcoming the fireworks turned into heart-rending shrieks and cries of the wounded, mostly from children who huddled close to the stage.

“The crowd stampeded and chairs and placards started flying all over. The second grenade came at an interval of perhaps 1.5 to two seconds and likewise exploded,” he said.

Lopez recounted the injuries sustained by his party mates, which rendered them incapacitated to wage a nationwide campaign. Although majority of the LP candidates won,  Lopez denounced the subsequent declaration of Martial Law less than a year after the elections, which enabled then President Ferdinand Marcos to continue in office despite the existing charter in the presidency and curbing civil liberties of the Filipinos.

On the last session day of the Manila City Council, Lopez, who was then a Manila councilor, denounced Marcos’s actions as the murder of democracy, saying that Filipinos cannot be rightfully denied their right to manage local affairs, a right infringed by Proclamation 1081.

While he enumerated the various struggles the opposition took at that time, Lopez said that although those were dark times in the page of Philippine democracy, the efforts of the martyrs of democracy in Plaza Miranda did not go to waste.

He said the freedom they were fighting for was achieved in 1986 following the EDSA revolution, where former President Corazon C. Aquino, widow of another freedom fighting Liberal, Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., was catapulted into the presidency in a bloodless revolution.

“The recent death of former President Corazon Aquino becomes relevant to us in our times as it presents significant parallelisms in Philippine history. Political analysts agree that the country’s massive and unprecedented send-off at President Cory’s funeral should serve as an eye opener and warning to power hungry politicians.

“That the Filipino people deeply mourned the death of an acclaimed world icon of democracy shows that we are inherently a democracy loving people and that wanton trampling of our rights and freedom can always bring a repeat of EDSA,” he said.

The country commemorates on Friday the 38th anniversary of the Plaza Miranda bombing, an event which reportedly triggered the declaration of Martial Law.

The day coincides with the death anniversary of Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., who was assassinated at the tarmac of the Manila International Airport upon returning home from exile in the United States on August 21, 1983.