Militant and people’s organizations that played a pivotal role in the ouster of former President Joseph Estrada in 2001 were prevented yesterday from reaching a shrine to commemorate people power II.
Party-list Rep. Satur Ocampo, who was with the militant groups that marched to the Our Lady of Peace shrine at EDSA and Ortigas Avenue, denounced the dispersal.
Ocampo said the rallyists were unarmed and only wanted to join in the celebration of the event they had helped bring about.
"This is a violation of our rights," he said. "These people are unarmed and there is no need for water cannons. There is an open invitation to the celebration at the EDSA Shrine and we only want to be a part of it."
The rallyists, estimated at 500,000, belong to the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), Alliance of Concerned Teachers, National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), Plunder Watch, Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) and Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).
The marchers were occupying half of EDSA’s south-bound lane when riot police blocked their path in front of Camp Crame without diverting traffic.
The police blockade created a monstrous traffic jam along EDSA, prompting many bus passengers to continue their commutes via the Metro Rail Transit (MRT).
Ocampo and his fellow party-list Reps. Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza, Bayan Muna secretary general Nathaniel Santiago, Bayan chairman Teodoro Casiño and Plunder Watch’s Fr. Joe Dizon were at the front lines of the march and they tried to negotiate with Cubao police detachment chief Superintendent Rosendo Franco, seeking access to the EDSA Shrine. Franco did not let the marchers pass.
Franco said the rallyists should have first secured a rally permit and asked the protesters to talk to Metro Manila police chief Deputy Director Gen. Reynaldo Velasco, who had ordered Franco to set up the blockade.
Ocampo called Velasco’s cellular phone to patch the rally leaders through to the Metro Manila police chief. Velasco was not answering his phone, which, Franco said, simply kept ringing.
The rallyists tried to march past the police blockade, prompting the lawmen to act by hitting the charging rallyists with their truncheons. Some protesters retaliated by throwing the wooden sticks, used for holding streamers, at the police.
Firemen backed up the police blockade with water cannons, spraying the rallyists with high-pressure jets of water to knock them back from the police line.
News photographers and other journalists covering the incident were not spared the spraying, despite the fact that they were perched atop a flat-bed truck carrying the marchers’ sound system.
Ocampo and the other front-line leaders again tried to talk the police into allowing them access to the EDSA Shrine, to no avail.
Minutes after the march leaders failed to talk a path to the Shrine, conflict erupted anew, with the protesters again making a bid for their objective and the lawmen and firemen again using night-sticks and water cannons on them.
"EDSA Shrine is a monument to people power I and II, of which we are a part," Santiago said. "Why should we be barred from getting there? We will assert our rights to go there."
He added that although President Arroyo has kept the EDSA II marchers from reaching their goal, they believe the anniversary is still worth celebrating.
"We are commemorating our success in bringing down the corrupt Estrada administration and, for that, we have the right to be at the shrine," Santiago said. The protesters dispersed peacefully at 3 p.m.
Velasco said the men of Central Police District (CPD) chief Senior Superintendent Napoleon Castro defended their line when the rallyists attempted to push their way through the phalanx of riot police who were under orders not to allow the rallyists to continue their march to the EDSA shrine.
The protesters stopped at the Ortigas flyover some 200 meters from the shrine where the President and ranking government officials attended the Mass celebrated by Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to mark the event.
Riding aboard 21 jeepneys and three mini-buses, the protesters were blocked by riot policemen at the northbound foot of the flyover before they could turn right and proceed straight to the shrine.
The house of worship that is best known as the EDSA Shrine had come to resemble a military camp, surrounded with 600 policemen and soldiers and limned by a perimeter of barbed wire.
The protesters were shouting anti-government slogans when the presidential convoy arrived at the shrine at 11:45 a.m. Mrs. Arroyo left the EDSA shrine at exactly 1:30 p.m.
While the lawmen of the CPD clashed with the main body of protesters in Cubao, Eastern Police District (EPD) director Chief Superintendent Rolando Sacramento managed to persuade the protesters who managed to get to the Ortigas flyover to conduct their rally peacefully and give due respect to the celebration of Holy Mass.
Sacramento also barricaded the streets fronting the EDSA shrine with fire trucks, police trucks and vehicles from the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) motorpool to ensure that protesters could not get any closer to the shrine.
Velasco ordered the rerouting of traffic in areas leading to the EDSA shrine as protesters were blocking the way.
When asked how the protester managed to get close to the EDSA shrine undetected, Sacramento said the rallyists had arrived on board different vehicles from separate directions and converged at the SM Megamall before proceeding towards the shrine.
Eight other buses from Southern Tagalog were blocked by riot police near the vicinity of SM Megamall.
"I’m seeing to it that not a single rallyist would come near the EDSA Shrine," Sacramento said, citing the orders issued to him by Velasco.
He added the police and military riot squads will spend the night at the EDSA shrine and will only leave when ordered to do so by their superiors.