Criselda Yabes is a journalist based in the Philippines. She is author of "The Battle of Marawi," her 10th book, which was published last year.
Yellow was the color of the 1986 People Power Revolution that brought the Philippines to the world democracy stage. The same color, sullied and denigrated by President Rodrigo Duterte as part of his attempts to usher in his own brand of authoritarianism, is now almost a badge of dishonor.
But just when we thought that revisionism had wiped our nation's short memory, the yellow torch has been rekindled amid the outpouring of grief following the death of former President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III, whose party and everything else he represented have been so vilified by Duterte's bully politics.
For the 1986 generation that forced the miraculous, bloodless toppling of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Aquino's untimely death has revealed so much about our losses.
We are the generation that grew up with the Aquino family. We saw Marcos' political nemesis, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., assassinated on his return from exile in the U.S., when the opposition had circulated yellow ribbons in reference to the song about waiting for a soldier to return home. The brutal murder soon propelled his widow, Corazon, to the presidency; her death from cancer in 2009 helped her son win the presidency in 2010.
Now the end of the Aquino era may yet save us again, and help restore the decency tarnished by Duterte's fearmongering. Aquino's death, paradoxically, has burnished the hope of a new choice for Filipinos: A year out from the next presidential election, will we choose a liberator like a Aquino, or a would-be dictator like Duterte?
It is as if we have been given a last chance to redeem ourselves. That there will be no more Aquinos to lead gives today's youths a historic opportunity to rekindle the fading embers of democracy. If they spurn democracy now, there might be no turning back.
We have been too long on this roller coaster, exhausted each time we have had to revive democracy. Falling behind our neighbors, the populist trend is making things worse. The population surge of the last 30 years has left the new generation with little of the privileges that come with a growing economy, such as shared wealth and better education. Quick fixes are the norm, poverty is the status quo, patronage rules the day.
With no children, Aquino's death has buried the family name. If only those other dynastic families who have prolonged their power behaving as if they were God's gift to the people would do the same. Now Duterte is on the track to pass the baton to his daughter Sara, the most feudal way to hold on to power.
Over the last 50 years, the Aquinos were our only presidents who did not try to cling to power. When he watched his party lose the 2016 elections that brought Duterte to power, Aquino ensured an orderly transition. While Duterte's minions proceeded to trash his legacy, Aquino maintained a dignified silence.
Out of the public eye, living alone in his late parents' modest home, Aquino died peacefully in his sleep. While other political scions are burdened by destiny, Aquino figured himself a modern leader, as his speechwriter Manolo Quezon said, of a people unwilling to pay the price of reform.
Yellow confetti rain on the military component during the 30th anniversary celebration of the People Power Revolution at suburban Quezon city, northeast of Manila, in February 2016. © AP Yes, Aquino made mistakes, some of them grave, but they did not outweigh the gains. Yet despite that, Filipino voters made a radical turnaround in 2016, turning our presidential election process into a game of chance. "People actually hated to hear [Aquino say] 'you are my boss,'" wrote Quezon. "Filipinos want their presidents to make decisions for them."
If the youths of the current generation, who may now examine the political fallout, choose quality over vagaries in the next elections, that will count as a victory. If they encourage leaders who have worked from the bottom up, rather than those anointed by powerful blood relations, that will be another victory.
Social media was awash with revelations about Aquino's leadership style, a stark contrast to the Duterte administration, offering new incentives for Filipino millennials to reverse the current autocratic trend.
The youths of today need to stop the mood swings of the pendulum, stop delaying the advance of our nation. We could lay to rest the color yellow, and everything it stood for, that grand moment when, for once, we all came together. But in doing so, we should also wrest the flag that Duterte has appropriated in his name, dividing instead of unifying. We must reclaim our national flag to restore its honor.
Yellow confetti fell from the sky in the days when a generation of Filipinos defied a dictator, intensifying a color that magnified nostalgia.
It is what is left of that force that should revive us, spent as we are from the heaviness of politics and the absence of the rule of law. The yellow ribbons seen on Aquino's funeral cortege before his ashes were laid to rest was a mournful reminder of what we are now missing, my generation that still savors freedom.