Thursday and Friday last week may have been the longest two days this year for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Despite her composed and firm image when she addressed the country on television last Friday, she showed signs of fatigue – and anger. It was quite obvious that she just had a sleepless night, maybe to figure out with her closest advisers how to deal with the crisis that never was.
As I listened to her, I wondered how the President reacted when she was told that Scout Ranger Gen. Danilo Lim had withdrawn his support from her. I wondered if at all she entertained the thought of losing her seat. Did she tremble? Did she panic that she immediately summoned her tactless chief of staff Mike Defensor to do thinking and talking for her? Did she yell “punyeta!” to anyone she saw in Malacanang?
The possibilities are endless, of course. In restrospect, the President’s declaration of a state of emergency may have been an overreaction. No one, not even Justice Secretary Raul Gonzales, could cite a good reason why the declaration, sending signals to progressive and activist groups that Malacanang had acted whimsically, too aftraid of its own shadows that it wanted to fill every street with soldiers in their full battle gears as prelude to Martial Law. As usual, it was only Mike Defensor who had the storyline, the plot and some unnamed characters that would make a good action tele-novela.
The other funny thing during last Friday’s “crisis” was when PNP Chief Art Lomibao ordered the transfer of former President Joseph Estrada from a hospital in San Juan where he is scheduled for an eye surgery to a “safer ground.” It was 3 a.m., a fuming Erap said in a radio interview. They came knocking hard on my door and even kicking it. But I refused to go with them, he added.
To say that Erap was unsafe in his own hometown, where the incumbent mayor is his son and where he also served as mayor for a long time, is simply preposterous. We recognize that it was the PNP’s responsibility to ensure Erap’s safety but at that moment, they could have immediately thought that Erap couldn’t have been safer right in his own house. Common sense.
Despite the state of emergency rule and the declaration of no rally zones, protesters asking the President to resign defied it. They marched in EDSA, at one point triggering a violent confrontation between the rallyists and the policemen. UP Prof. Randy David was even arrested while he was negotiating with a police general. Then, of course, former President Cory Aquino dared Malacanang to arrest her by leading the protest-march in Ayala to commemorate the 20 th year anniversary of the EDSA Revolution that toppled the Marcos dictatorship and to once again ask the President “to make the supreme sacrifice by resigning from the presidency.” Cory was not arrested.
As the last protester left Ayala last night, Malacanang declared that it’s over. In fact, they have done it earlier in the day by announcing that the military has thwarted at coup attempt.
But is it? Then, why no lift the state of emergency? Why the threats of arrests of civilian plotters and financiers?
The tension during last Friday’s “crisis” has certainly dissipated. President Arroyo still sits as President and to her supporters, “tuloy ang ligaya!” Gen. Danny Lim’s “defection”, however, must be one lesson Malacanang should find time to analyze. His action was not just a simple political exercise or military insubordination. Not even a military adventurism.
It’s time Malacanang start listening hard to the people. If it doesn’t, it may no longer know what hit it when the next strong wind comes.
