BORN in January 1983, Alex Santos was an infant when Senator Benigno ?Ninoy? Aquino, Jr. was assassinated on August 21 of the same year. Santos was a toddler when the Marcos dictatorship crumbled in February 1986; in primary school when Aquino?s widow, then President Corazon Aquino, relinquished power to her duly-elected successor, President Fidel V. Ramos; and 18 when Ramos? duly-elected successor, President Joseph Estrada, was deposed in January 2001.

At 26, Santos has legally known but one president of the Philippines: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Yet, on August 5, Santos walked 22 kilometers, hungry and unshod, for nearly nine hours. He was one of 30 volunteers gathered by Quezon City Councilor Joseph Juico to form a human cordon alongside the flower-decked flatbed truck that brought the casket of Cory Aquino from the Manila Cathedral in Intramuros to the Manila Memorial Park in Parañaque City.

Santos? group donned a distinctive uniform of black T-shirt and yellow baseball cap, which did not do much to protect them from the drenching rain or the blistering sun. Santos? rubber shoes did not survive the ordeal: It gave way just three hours into the funeral march.

Amazed by the outpouring of love for their grandmother, Jiggy Cruz, Miggy Abellada, Kiko Dee and their siblings and cousins waved and thanked the multitudes from their red van tailing the hearse. The Aquino grandchildren also implored the young men and women who walked alongside their van to quit the funeral march. ?You may rest. You need not go to the Memorial Park. It?s too far,? they called out.

But the crowd, mostly youths in their 20s, just as old as Jiggy and Miggy, wouldn?t let go. Instead of taking shelter from the punishing rain, they chanted in youthful exuberance: ?Think positive! Walang iwanan! [Stay together!]?

Feasting on their own shining moment, young strappy photographers snapped the scenes for posterity while wide-eyed journalists hopped from trucks to motorcycles, hitching rides on any vehicle that would breeze them through the throng at the South Expressway in time for the funeral in Parañaque.

?This is just like ?83,? Aquino?s eldest child, Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, would say, comparing her mother?s funeral to that of her father?s 26 years ago.

Her younger sister Viel Aquino-Dee agreed, but noted the difference. ?They?re cheering now, there was none of that in ?83.?

In 1983 and into the next three years, there was quiet, seething anger waiting to explode. It was expressed in the chants ? ?Marcos! Hitler! Diktador! Tuta!? ? and the clenched fists and anarchic explosions in Mendiola that only the youth could muster. It resonated in songs deriding Marcos, such as ?Si Marcos namatay, si Marcos ay nabuhay, si Marcos babalik, and nakatuhog sa stick!? and sanctified painfully in the freedom fighter?s anthem: ?Kay sarap mabuhay, sa sariling bayan...?

For us who experienced the People Power revolution in 1986, August 5 was a celebration of gratitude and thanksgiving to the widow who brought us back to democracy.

For those too young to remember Edsa without the flyovers, August 5 was the coming to life of the stories told by their parents about Ninoy and Cory. It was like coming home to a place one had heard so much about.

In her death, Cory Aquino made sure People Power, in its pure, unadulterated form, remains alive and secure in the hearts of the new generation.

After the ouster of former president Joseph Estrada in January 2001, and the vain attempt of his followers to return him to Malacanang in May of the same year, some groups organized a series of symposia on the simmering political development.

In the open forum, questions were raised on the legality of Edsa 2 and Edsa 3.

Was the so-called Edsa 2 really People Power, or was it a mob rule of the elite to dispose of Estrada, a movie actor duly elected president of the Republic?

Was Edsa 3 also People Power, or was it a mob rule of the poor who were trucked and fed and, supposedly, even drugged, to attack Malacañang?

A woman activist argued passionately that Edsa 2 and Edsa 3 were different animals. Edsa 2, she said, was about ?powerful people? exerting their rule over the majority, driving out a duly constituted president who was not elitist enough to be in their league. It was a successful power grab by ?Powerful People.?

Edsa 3, she continued, was about ?powerless people? who can be ? and were indeed ?exploited and manipulated to do someone else?s bidding. Their attempt failed because they were too small, too insignificant to matter in the grand scheme of national interest and public order.

By her reckoning, there was only one People Power, and that happened in February 1986 when the people came on their own in response to a call by Jaime Cardinal Sin to protect then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile, PC chief General Fidel V. Ramos and their cohorts of soldiers who broke away from Marcos. The people walked to Edsa to register their protest, and make change happen.

The throng that waited to bid goodbye to Cory Aquino was a reprise of the original People Power at its purest form.

Neither trucked nor tricked, neither paid nor fed, had the crowd proved that People Power transcends social strata and class distinctions. People Power is not class struggle. It is not a choice between the rich and poor, between going hungry or having food in one?s belly. People Power is about good and evil, about hope and desperation, about faith burning eternal in youth and believing that beyond all the scams and shameless abuse of power that they see around now, something good awaits. ?