Chapter 51 The Revolution

     In the early morning of Feb 7, 1986, public schools were opened, and throngs of people trekked to the polls to cast their ballots. People were excited and hopeful. Optimism filled the air, for freedom had come back, at last.

     The election went on roughly with several skirmishes in the provinces. Countrywide fraud was committed by the military to help the incumbent. They were powerful so they intimidated the opposition poll watchers, most of the time stealing ballot boxes and replacing them with tampered votes.

     When the balloting closed, the administration without waiting for the official canvassing of votes, declared preemptively the incumbent as the winner. Protest rang all over the country culminating with the walking out of the computer programmers who supervised the canvassing.

     There was a report of a coup d'état. The non-violence struggle for justice was de