Swoop of the eagle: ‘Erap, resign!’ - HERE'S THE SCORE by Teodoro C. Benigno

It was not EDSA 16 years ago when doves flew, the dictator’s troops and tanks were stopped by flowers, rosary beads and proffered food, and the dictator and his family fled to Honolulu after the crumbling of the dikes. Ferdinand Marcos waited for word from the White House and when it came, his face cracked and tears almost came to his bloodshot eyes. Sen. Paul Laxalt, speaking for President Ronald Reagan, told him in no uncertain terms "to cut and cut cleanly." And so he cut without a whimper. He donned an old man’s clothes and an old man’s hat and descended with his family in Honolulu. Three years more would pass before the former handsome, virile dimpled face would shrink into that of a dying Rumplestiltskin, his wife singing a love song at his deathbed.

Saturday at the EDSA Shrine was different. So soldiers came. Malacañang was not besieged after the flight of the Marcoses. There was not a furious tom-tom of People Power triumph with the citizenry dancing in the streets and old tires set to fire and burning into the late night. There was no Cory Aquino taking over, no Yellow Army scattering in jubilation throughout the city. But Saturday, there was a widespread feeling the prayer rally had successfully drawn its daggers and plunged them deep into Joseph Estrada’s political heart.

The president may not know it, may not admit it, but he is now politically dead. As pronounced by the rally’s leaders, principally Jaime Cardinal Sin and Cory Aquino.

It was pathetic looking at some front-page photos the morning after. Heedless of the "Erap, Resign!" tumult at the EDSA shrine bellowed by the tens of thousands – rich, middle class and poor – he was distributing relief goods to typhoon victims in Angono, Rizal. No, as was his word repeated again and again, he would not resign, not a hundred rallies and demonstrations could make him resign. The poor, the deprived, the masa were still for him and they outnumbered the affluent of Makati, the Church and the middle class "who never liked me from the very beginning."

Mr. President, I am sorry, sir, but you better look for the exits. You will resign and leave the country or you will be done in as a convicted criminal by virtue of impeachment proceedings in the Senate. Or like what happened to you as mayor of San Juan after EDSA, the avengers will come and they will take you out. If they cannot take you out peacefully, I am afraid they might will take you out physically. I have heard such talk.

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I know, I know. You believe you still have your magic, that something might or could happen, the myth the poor will board a flying carpet and extricate you from danger. As H.L. Mencken said, "For the plain people of the world are always looking for messiahs, and whenever one wears out, they look for another. They are not content with hard diligence and common sense. What they always pant for is magic." Again, Mencken: "There’s a great horde of stoneheads gathered around a (magician’s) stand."

Your magic has greatly dissipated. And in a trice, it will flee from your presidency as passengers – high and low– flee from a sinking ship as well as rats, rodents and assorted reptilia. The magic was at the EDSA Shrine Saturday. And what a magic it was!

As far as the eyes could see, horizontally, vertically and diagonally, there were people. For today’s EDSA is so reconstructed that fly-overs streak overhead like giant sausages that never end, and all throughout placards, streamers, giant posters screamed for your resignation. There was even one streamer that gladdened the eye, for it read, if I can still remember the words: "Erap resign, so the Filipino people can still enjoy Christmas and the New Year." It was apt, it was delightfully piquant, it mirrored the sentiments of Filipinos with the approach of the Yuletide.

Not in a long time had Filipinos been deluged verbally with the mantra of the rosary, as overhead the statue of the Virgin Mary stood stoically and majestically, witness to her intercessionary powers. It was also witness to this huge gathering imploring her to help the multitudes end the pain and the agony of Estrada’s presidency. And, in between Hail Mary stages, you had former president Fidel Ramos, GMA, Senate President Franklin Drilon, House Speaker Manuel Villar, Senate minority leader Teofisto Guingona, ex-senator Bert Romulo, ex-health secretary Alran Bengzon and the like seeking the Lord and the Virgin Mary’s blessings, quite a number of them fugitively sticking knives into Erap Estrada’s back.

Some didn’t exactly like these invocations. For quite a number of them came from politicians of great prominence in the Estrada regime. And now they were touching the hem of the Virgin Mary’s robe. But that is politics. The president had to hemorrhage profusely, so others in the crowd mutely accepted the turnover. If that would speed up Erap Estrada’s impeachment, so be it. But beware, beware of the same old wine coming in new bottles, others said under their breath.

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But well worth everything, the heat, then the slight rain, then the long hours of prayer, was the speech of Jaime Cardinal Sin.

Bent, his left eye almost blind, the bishop’s red skull cap atop a face that was now gaunt because of continuing illness, the cheeks almost sallow, the step a hobble at a time, the aging cardinal (71 or 72) delivered an address that had some of the dignity of Gettysburg. But almost always, the Cardinal’s sorties were those of a mountain eagle swooping now and again on Joseph Estrada, clutching the president in its claws, swinging him in mid-air, then dropping Erap bloodied and bedraggled to the sod.

It was a religious speech, as it was a gladiatorial speech, as it was a naughty speech that ripped off the president’s clothes piece by piece, until he was left only with a fig leaf. But even that fig fell out when the last swoop came. Then forgive me if I imagined wrongly, I felt I was witness to a castration rite, performed no less by a man of God, a cardinal no less, who had had enough of the Erap presidency and now was stripping him naked for all the world to see.

Hear this: "The presidency has become an occasion of sin for him. His immoral life, high-stakes gambling, his women and his mistresses, his drinking sessions, his association with friends of doubtful character –have worsened through the years. He has become complacent." Here again: "Do you really give millions as balato? Two of our senators told us that you did. If the balato is P1 million, the betting must be a lot. We want the truth."

And still again: "Ayaw namin ng lider na may katungkulan subalit walang karangalan. Ayaw namin ng lider na mahilig magpapogi subalit hindi naman kamukha ng Diyos. Ayaw namin ng lider na gustong magtagumpay subalit walang pananagutan…Can you encourage the nation, our youth and our children and encourage them to imitate you because you have been a faithful husband to the First Lady?"

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Still more. More.

Roof-rattling applause met almost every accusation, cheers, hoots and bellows of delight, stomping of feet, gales of laughter. The people never heard their Cardinal talk this way. The body had become frail. In ordinary private conversation, the voice would lisp, stammer a little, sometimes break into twigs. But this time, last Saturday, that voice came through like naval fire, loud, clear and extravagantly bold, a sermon from the pulpit unlike no other sermon I had ever heard.

Two, three years ago we thought the Cardinal was on the verge of death. Just six months ago, when I called up his younger brother, Dr. Ramon Sin, head of UST medical faculty and the hospital, he assured me the Cardinal had weakened considerably but was very much alive. He had no cancer. "Don’t worry, Teddy," he said. "When the time comes that you will need him, the Cardinal will be there."

Well, he was there Saturday. Large as or even bigger than life, physically a quivering reed of a man who once was so big and portly he left heavy footprints on the ground when he walked. Yes, we needed him, Dr. Sin, at another time when the nation was in crisis and only his voice, his presence, his counsel to the nation could make the difference. Now he did it again.

After the cardinal, Cory Aquino’s speech, though well-written and cutting too, was anti-climactic. She pointed to Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Mr. Estrada’s successor, a fact not lost on the audience but which failed to boom festively into the skies. It seems the citizenry is cautious, reluctantly accepts GMA, but treads on egg shells because she has yet to show the nation what she can do. Show them, Gloria. If you can.

In the end, what defined the rapture of that Saturday afternoon was the post-program revelry. And the crowds refused to leave. The Spice Boys and others broke into Jennifer Lopez’s hype-laden hit song Let’s Get Loud.’ Well, whaddayouknow? Triccie Sison and Ching Montinola left my flanks, and stormed forth dancing, shaking, wriggling, bumping, grinding. Begorra!