I
The August air was thick with heat and noise.
Plaza Miranda, the beating heart of Manila's politics, pulsed with banners, chants, and the smell of roasted peanuts sold by vendors weaving through the crowd. Loudspeakers crackled with voices promising hope, reform, and freedom.
It was the rally of the Liberal Party — a sea of faces gathered beneath strings of light bulbs strung over the square. On the stage stood senators and candidates, all calling for change, for courage against corruption, for democracy's return to its people.
Rafael dela Cruz stood near the rear of the crowd, notebook in hand. Decades of revolution and war had aged him, but his eyes still burned with restless vigilance. He had seen presidents rise and fall, had written of freedom betrayed and reborn, but tonight, something in the air felt wrong — too tense, too loud, like thunder waiting to break.
A student brushed past him, handing out pamphlets.
"Sir, join us! Reform starts tonight!"
Rafael smiled faintly. "Careful, hijo. Reform is the kind of fire that burns its own believers first."
The young man grinned. "Then let it burn bright." He vanished into the crowd.
On stage, Senator Gerry Roxas raised his arms. "The time has come," he shouted, "to stand against fear and tyranny! The people's voice—"
The microphone screeched. Then —
A blinding flash.
A thunderclap that tore the night in two.
II
Chaos. Smoke. Screams.
The square, moments before alive with chants, was now a pit of agony. The platform lay shattered, banners burning. Bodies sprawled across cobblestones slick with blood. A senator crawled, his white barong torn and soaked crimson. Another man's glasses lay broken beside a twisted shoe.
Rafael staggered to his knees, ears ringing, his notebook lost. His mind could not form words — only images: the child crying beside a fallen vendor's cart, the mangled microphone stand, the smell of iron and dust.
"Help! Somebody help!" shouted a voice, raw with horror.
Rafael forced himself to move, dragging a wounded man away from the flames. "Stay with me," he gasped. "Stay—"
The man's hand slipped from his grasp.
The lights went out. The plaza sank into a choking darkness lit only by the burning stage. Sirens wailed from the distance — too late, as always.
III
Hours later, the hospital overflowed. Corridors smelled of blood and antiseptic. Reporters shouted questions. Soldiers pushed them back.
Rafael sat on a bench, his shirt torn, his hands trembling. The nurse who bandaged his arm whispered, "So many dead, sir. Senators. Journalists. Even children."
He nodded mutely. The explosion still echoed in his skull.
A familiar voice broke through the noise.
"Rafael! You're alive!"
It was Manuel, older now, his hair streaked with gray. He gripped Rafael's shoulder hard. "I thought you were gone, old friend."
"I might be," Rafael murmured. "Just not yet."
Manuel sat beside him. "The radio says the communists did it. They're saying it's the CPP, maybe even the students."
Rafael frowned. "So soon? They've already decided?"
Manuel's eyes darted around the corridor. "You know how this works. The Palace wastes no time when fear is useful."
Rafael leaned forward, voice low. "I was there, Manuel. I saw no rebels. Just people. Ordinary people."
Manuel sighed. "Then the truth will be buried with them."
IV
The morning after, Manila woke not to sunlight, but to headlines:
"COMMUNISTS BOMB PLAZA MIRANDA!"
"PRESIDENT PROMISES JUSTICE!"
Posters were plastered overnight, blaming the left, warning of "red terror." Soldiers patrolled university gates. Curfews tightened. The city trembled in confusion.
At the newsroom where Rafael once sent his articles, the editor met him at the door.
"Rafael, don't. They'll read your name and think you planted the bomb yourself."
"I was there," Rafael said. "I saw it. People deserve the truth."
"The truth?" The editor gave a bitter laugh. "The truth now is whatever the Palace prints at dawn. You write against it, and you'll vanish before nightfall."
Rafael turned away, heart heavy. He had seen censorship before — under the Japanese, under colonial rule — but never had it worn the face of a Filipino government with its own flag flying proudly above the lies.
V
That evening, he returned to Plaza Miranda. The square was cordoned off, the air still heavy with the smell of explosives. Candles flickered before photographs of the dead. Mothers wept quietly. Priests led whispered prayers.
An old woman approached Rafael, clutching a rosary. "My son sold peanuts here," she said. "They say he was part of the bombing. But he was just selling peanuts. Tell me, sir… why would he die like that?"
Rafael bowed his head. "Because sometimes, señora, the innocent stand too close to power when it explodes."
She looked at him, uncomprehending, tears streaking her face.
He wanted to say more — to promise justice, or at least remembrance — but the words would not come. Even truth, he realized, had lost its voice that night.
VI
In Malacañang Palace, the mood was grim but calculated. Advisors crowded around the President, speaking in cautious tones.
"Mr. President," said one general, "the people demand protection. We must move swiftly."
Marcos nodded slowly. "Yes. The nation must be saved from chaos."
"Shall we prepare the documents?"
"Prepare them," he said, voice cold and sure. "If the people fear disorder, they will welcome order — even if it comes in chains."
Imelda stood by the window, her expression unreadable. "And when history asks who lit the fire?"
Marcos smiled faintly. "History will write what I tell it to."
VII
That same night, Rafael met with student leaders in a dim café in Ermita. The walls were plastered with protest posters now deemed illegal.
Liza, the fiery student from before, spoke first. "They blame us. They're arresting activists in Tarlac and Pampanga. My friend was taken this morning."
Victor slammed his fist on the table. "They'll use this to silence everyone!"
Rafael remained calm. "They already are. But listen—don't give them what they want. They want chaos to justify control. Discipline yourselves. Speak, but wisely."
Liza's eyes flashed. "You still believe words can save us?"
Rafael met her gaze. "Words are all we have left before guns answer everything."
Outside, a siren wailed — long and mournful. The café fell silent.
VIII
In the following weeks, arrests mounted. Universities were raided. The press trembled. Every explosion, every rally, every rumor became fuel for fear. The President spoke of "saving democracy," yet democracy was already bleeding in the gutters.
Rafael wrote again, this time not for publication but for his journal:
"We have entered an age where silence is mistaken for peace, and fear for unity. Plaza Miranda was not just a bombing — it was a funeral. The Republic buried its soul beneath the rubble, and from its grave, tyranny begins to bloom."
He closed the notebook, staring out his window toward the dark skyline of Manila. The glow of streetlights flickered faintly — like candles for a democracy that did not know it was already dying.
IX
A month later, Rafael attended a funeral mass for one of the victims. The church overflowed with mourners, their sobs mingling with hymns. The priest's voice trembled as he said, "Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, for they shall be silenced first."
Rafael stood at the back, hat in hand. He watched as Imelda's representatives laid flowers before the altar — lilies, white and pure — and thought bitterly of how easily purity was performed when power demanded spectacle.
Outside, rain began to fall, washing over the plaza stones where blood had once pooled. Children splashed in the puddles, too young to remember. The old men selling newspapers muttered of rumors — that the President would soon take greater powers, that the Constitution would bend.
Rafael listened to the rain and whispered to himself:
"It always begins with fear. And ends with silence."
X
That night, in a dim radio station run by students, a secret broadcast crackled through static. "This is Radyo Bayan," a voice declared. "To those still listening — the truth is alive. Do not be afraid."
Rafael, listening from his apartment, smiled faintly. Even in the darkest nights, there were still voices, small but defiant, rising like sparks from dying embers.
He reached for his pen, and beneath his last entry, wrote one more line:
"Plaza Miranda was not the end. It was the warning."
And outside, beyond his window, the winds began to change — carrying with them the first whispers of a storm that would soon swallow the Republic whole.
The city slept uneasily that night. Police trucks prowled the boulevards with their headlights dimmed, and whispers spread that new orders had been signed — names listed, doors marked. In the quiet hum of the capital, fear learned to move without sound. And as dawn approached, somewhere inside Malacañang, the typewriters began again — not for news, not for laws, but for arrests. The Republic still breathed, but its air was thinning. And new orders rise in the upcoming fourth republic