By: Jhoemz Vercide |

Traffic, billboards, buildings, malls, urban life, cars, and a huge parking lot--these are just some few of many words that best describe Edsa in the eyes of the Filipinos.

As a famous landmark in the Metro, it has become so popular in a negative way. Motorists see this avenue as the worst route to their daily lives.

It truly bears a bad impression which tends to take all the blames from the delayed arrivals to canceled plans due to traffic jams and the life-changing daily battle of commuters.

We just all have known Edsa as it is, as one of the primary roads in the country but are you curious about Epifanio Delos Santos? Who’s that guy and why his name was chosen for this Philippine national road among all our great heroes? Have you ever heard about the man behind Edsa’s name? Has it ever crossed your mind just for once?

Who is Epifanio De los Santos?

• Epifanio De los Santos was born in Malabon but spent the best of his childhood memories in the provinces of Rizal and Nueva Ecija.
• He obtained a summa cum laude from the Ateneo Municipal de Manila when he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree.
• De los Santos also earned a law degree at the University of Santo Tomas, and he, later on, topped the bar exams in 1898.
• In his father’s hometown in Nueva Ecija, Epifanio became interested in gathering plants and flowers. It then became a hobby that helped him develop his collecting instinct that will, later on, manifest in his brilliant works as a historian and collector.
• Epifanio de los Santos was known as Don Panyong (Don Pañong) by his friends and contemporaries.
• He mastered several expertise and fields including art and literary critic, jurist, prosecutor, antiquarian, scholar, archivist, painter, poet, musicologist, musician, philosopher, philologist, translator, bibliographer, editor, journalist, publisher, ethnographer, researcher, biographer, civil servant, and a hero of the Philippine revolution.
• During his time, he was considered one of the best Filipino writers in Spanish.
• Don Panyong used the pen name, Solon, when he wrote for the revolutionary paper, “La Independencia” in 1898.
• He was a polyglot, fluent in several major languages like English, Spanish, French German, and even tribal Philippine’s Tingian, Ita, and Ibalao.
• Major historical organizations like the Philippine Historical Committee (presently known as National Historical Commission of the Philippines), the Philippine Historical Association, the Philippine Library Association, Association of the University and College Professors, and two the Philippines’ famous Rizaleños, Eulogio Rodriguez Sr. and Juan Sumulong, initiated and supported the move to rename the freeway from Highway 54 to Epifanio De los Santos Avenue (Avenida Epifanio Delos Santos).
• Epifanio de los Santos was born on the 7^th of April, 1871. On the same date in the year 1959, Republic Act No. 2140 was passed, renaming the avenue as EDSA to honor the genius slash hero.

To sum up, here’s how the whole narrative for the renaming of Highway 54 happens:

In 1940, Manuel L. Quezon wished to develop the longest street in the country then into the widest and most beautiful road in the Philippines. From its name, Highway 54, the government wants to rename it in honor of a Filipino historian.

With an unwritten rule then, the streets can only be named after dead people, the real contenders were US General Douglas “I shall return” MacArthur, and the much loved Ramon Magsaysay, who died in a plane crash in 1957. Then there was Jose Rizal, who already had a lot of streets named after him

It was then Juan Sumulong’s bill initiative to create a move. The bill was unanimously approved by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was signed into law by President Garcia as Republic Act No. 2140—“changing the name of Highway 54 in the province of Rizal to Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in honor of Don Epifanio de los Santos,

So, now what? After finding out some pieces of information about Epifanio’s life, are we imbibing all of his sacrifices? Or choose not to do anything and patiently waiting for our progress to come just like how the cars pass through Edsa?