by Sheila S. Coronel
TWENTY YEARS ago, at the height of the people power revolt, Imelda Marcos, then holed up in Malacañang with her anxious family and a phalanx of remaining loyal troops, contemplated the possibility of her imminent, and vertiginous, fall. At about the same time, Cory Aquino, who had returned to Manila after taking shelter in a Carmelite convent in Cebu when the uprising broke out, was insisting to worried family and friends that she should join the throng that had gathered at Edsa despite the security problems that would pose.
‘The electoral system must be changed’
ONE OF the most vivid — and defiant — images captured on television during the last days of the Marcos dictatorship was the walkout of 30 computer technicians manning the Commission on Elections’ (Comelec) tabulation machines at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC). Led by Linda Kapunan, the technicians suddenly stood up from their posts and then filed out of the room, computer diskettes in hand, to protest the deliberate manipulation of election results to favor Ferdinand Marcos.