FVR Lied to Win 1986 EDSA People Power I

Fidel V. Ramos died late afternoon of July 31, 2022 at the Makati Medical Center, following complications due to covid, a heart condition and demtentia. He was 94.

Born March 18, 1928, the once cigar-chomping taciturn West Point-trained general won a narrow victory in the tightly contested May 1992 presidential election to serve as the 12th president of the Philippines, from June 30, 1992 to June 30, 1998. He was a veteran of two major wars, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, and helped win People Power I in 1986.

At 64 in 1992, Ramos was the oldest Filipino president when he defeated six other aspirants which included the former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, mother of incumbent President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr., a former vice president, a former Senate president, a former speaker of the House, a feisty former immigration chief, and the country’s then richest tycoon.

President FVR (his nickname) went on to restore peace in the land, unify the country, attract record levels of foreign investments, and free the economy by breaking up monopolies in telecommunications, power, shipping, and water systems. He rescued the Philippines from a recession and the 1997 Asian financial crisis only for recession to come back in the last semester of his six-year presidency.

A policy wonk

“FVR was possibly first president who was a serious policy wonk. He was someone who understood the complex workings of the economy in an instinctive manner. In terms of policy, he was the most consistent and methodical. He knew what he wanted to do, and he tried to do it,” recalls his protégé long-time Albay congressman and former governor, Joey Sarte Salceda.

“Without FVR, we would not have been able to solidify the bedrock of investor confidence that has since allowed the country to grow its economy for decades. Ramos equaled economic reform. The Ramos brand was a brand of seriousness in governance. Business knew he meant business,” Salceda adds.

Ramos, however, is best remembered for winning the 1986 EDSA I revolt for the people. On the first day of Edsa I, Feb. 22, 1986, I was lucky to be both in Cebu, for Cory’s civil disobedience afternoon rally, and Manila, for the first night of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile’s breakaway coup. Enrile had no troops, just about two dozen RAM soldiers. His shock troops were us, foreign correspondents, numbering about 40. Thankfully, by midnight that Saturday, the Cagayan 100 of Col. Tirso Gador arrived from the north.

Not many people know it but Edsa I was triggered by greed and was won by a lie—a lie concocted by then Armed Forces of the Philippines Vice Chief of Staff General Fidel V. Ramos. The crowds that massed at Edsa on Feb. 24, 1986, Monday, and Feb. 25, Tuesday, were there not to stage a revolt but to hold a picnic.

FVR linked up with Radyo Bandido Sunday evening

At 9 Sunday evening of Feb. 23, 1986, General Ramos established a safe telephone connection to June Keithley of Radyo Bandido and Veritas at the Jacinto building in Santa Mesa, a few kilometers from the presidential palace. Monday morning, Feb. 24, 1986, Keithley announced on radio that the Marcoses had left. It was a lie—concocted by FVR, the ultimate psy-war expert. In their glee and feeling that finally it was all over, people trooped to Edsa to celebrate. That celebration become known as People Power I.

Ver’s forex trader died

The greed arose from a Chinese forex trader who violated the peso-dollar trading band imposed by the then unofficial central bank, the Binondo Central Bank managed and headed by then Trade and Industry Secretary Roberto V. Ongpin. Ongpin had the erring trader arrested and loaded into a van. Unfortunately, the forex trader died. Unfortunately again, the trader happened to be a man of then-Armed Forces chief Fabian C. Ver. Angered, the dreaded military chief had 22 of Ongpin’s security men arrested. They were marching in full battle gear and dressed in SWAT uniform at about 4 a.m. inside Fort Bonifacio when arrested on Feb. 22, 1986, a Saturday.

At 11 a.m., at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ongpin went looking for his security men. He called up then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile who was with the Club 365 at the Atrium in Makati. Enrile thought the arrest of the 22 Ongpin security men, who turned out to be RAM Boys of Col. Gringo Honasan, was part of the crackdown against the plot to oust Marcos.

FVR joined Enrile rebellion late evening of Feb. 22, 1986

It was not until late in the evening that Saturday (Feb. 22) that Ramos actually joined the rebellion at Camp Aguinaldo. He had contacted his loyal PC-INP commanders, like Rene de Villa in Bicol, and Rodrigo Gutang in Cagayan de Oro and found to his dismay no troops could be readily airlifted to Manila to reinforce Enrile’s men, who were undermanned and under-armed. Cory learned about the brewing rebellion at 4 p.m. the same Saturday in Cebu. She had led a destabilization and boycott rally there, which I covered.

Arriving in Manila from Cebu past 9 pm of Feb. 22, I joined the rebel forces of Minister Enrile and General Ramos at the Armed Forces headquarters Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City. The two men had barely 50 men at Camp Aguinaldo that night. There were about 40 foreign correspondents, including me. The following day, Sunday, the group moved to the PC-INP headquarters across EDSA at Camp Crame which had a bomb shelter good for 50 men. Enrile told me to go home because I could not be accommodated inside the bomb shelter. Instead, I joined cigar-chomping General Ramos, in his jogging short pants, as he went around the Camp Crame trying to boost the morale of fidgety rebel soldiers and policemen.

That night, Ramos and his men plotted the psy-war that won the revolt—for the people. He told June Keithley to lie on air that the Marcoses had left. The Marcoses actually left evening of Feb. 25, 1986.