Aren’t they tired playing gods yet? - GOTCHA by Jarius Bondoc

The attack was set for 0200H Monday, 30 April, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s 100th day as president. According to plot, reelectionist senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Miriam Santiago had worked up tens of thousands of Joseph Estrada’s loyalists since Thursday to march from EDSA Shrine and surround Malacañang. Gringo Honasan, another reelectionist senator, had convinced two dozen ex-soldiers of Guardians Brotherhood to rearm. His 1971 batchmate from the Philippine Military Academy, former PNP chief and senatorial candidate Ping Lacson, had regrouped officers of the defunct Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force to lead the march. Lacson’s aide Senior Supt. Cesar Mancao would gather 50 PAOCTF assets from Iglesia ni Cristo’s elite guards to join and bring their arms. Gen. Jake Malajacan and Chief Supt. Vic Batac, one-time chiefs respectively of AFP and PNP intelligence, would rustle up some more men.

But they were discovered Sunday. Senatorial candidate Ed Angara, head of Estrada’s main LDP party, confronted Ernesto Maceda of the allied NPC. They called a lunch meeting at Estrada’s San Juan mansion to get the hotheads to stand down. Estrada’s daughter Jackie was shocked to learn about the plot. Her brother, Jude, an Air Force captain, was all for it, though. Three of Estrada’s former Cabinet members, Ronaldo Zamora and brothers Ronnie and Dong Puno, argued against a march. But all they could do to stop it was order Ronald Lumbao, head of Estrada’s loyalists from Metro Manila’s slums, to not let anarchic pols use his men as cannon fodder.

A worried secretary of one of the candidates reported the events to friends in Malacañang. The AFP beefed up GMA’s Presidential Security Group with tanks, armored personnel carriers and fighter choppers. The PNP sent thousands of riot troops. Cardinal Jaime Sin called participants of People Power-II to a prayer vigil at Mendiola Bridge beside the palace.

The plotters called off the march. At 0300H Monday, a frustrated JV Ejercito, Estrada’s son by ex-actress Guia Gomez, agitated Lumbao’s stalwarts to troop to Makati’s financial district, attack the stock market and maul mestizos. An afternoon thunderstorm sent them scampering home. The ranks at EDSA dwindled, too, when Iglesia ni Cristo Bishop Eraño Manalo was told about Mancao’s enticement of his guards. He ordered INC-controlled radio station DZEC and TV channel 25 to stop covering the EDSA holdout and resume religious programming.

By dusk Monday, GMA announced that the coup plan had fizzled out. But she added: "I was hoping they would act, so I could crush them." Everybody went home for a good night’s sleep, save for some 2,000 People Power-II participants at Mendiola.

Then arrived at EDSA thousands of followers from the provinces whom Enrile had been waiting for four days. He had asked their leaders, mostly candidates for local positions, to contribute warm bodies to the effort. Embarrassed that they had nothing to show for the new arrivals but a few thousand loyalists, Santiago, Enrile and Maceda mobilized their crowds anew. So did a reluctant Angara. By Monday night, they were more than 50,000 strong again. The hotheads repeated their fiery speeches. The crowd booed Angara for restraining them. Pushers passed around shabu for anybody interested.

At 0300H Tuesday, the coup – or what was left of it – was reactivated. The loyalists began marching in two big groups to Malacañang, one via Sta. Ana district, the other via San Juan and Sta. Mesa. Dump trucks led the way. Literally riding shotgun, rather, the sumpak home-made version, were goons of Estrada’s political allies from Caloocan, Makati, Cavite, Isabela and Nueva Ecija. They caught policemen flat-footed, shooting and mauling two to death in their path. A kilometer from Malacañang, the crowd slowed down to loot bakeries and grocery stores. Thus nourished, they rushed through phalanx upon phalanx of riot policemen. Soldiers fired warning shots in the air, but the crowd was uncowed. For seven hours, the loyalists waged pitched battle with lawmen who couldn’t believe what they were seeing. The loyalists, burning parked cars along their path, reached the gates of Malacañang. Leftists who used to march in protest on the same streets, but were massing on Labor Day to denounce Estrada, couldn’t believe their eyes, too; never in the past 14 years had they gone that close. The last time they did in 1987, policemen had shot and killed 14 of their farmer-followers.

By noon, GMA said enough was enough and declared a state of rebellion. She ordered troops to quell the rampage and arrest the frontliners for drug-testing. Discovering that Enrile was booked on a morning flight to the US, she barred him from leaving town, along with Santiago, Maceda, Lacson, Honasan, Mancao, Malajacan and Batac.

The defiant Enrile and Santiago called a press conference with Angara and LDP campaign boss Butz Aquino. They chorused that GMA was to blame for the violence that led to unconfirmed deaths of three and injuries to hundreds of loyalists. Collectively at Club Pilipino and individually on radio and TV coverages, they all washed their hands of the rampage. Aquino said it was all GMA’s fault for refusing to negotiate with them for Estrada’s release despite nonbailable charges of plunder. Enrile and Maceda gingerly claimed that, incendiary as their EDSA speeches were, these were done in the spirit of an election campaign. They repeated their line that Estrada was innocent of accusations of stealing tax money, receiving kickbacks from SSS and GSIS, and taking bribes from jueteng lords. If GMA doesn’t release him, the riots would go on – but, no, they weren’t leading them.

JV Ejercito was equally evasive and uncontrite. He said the masa was raging because of the injustice done to his father. He refused to listen when reminded by news anchors that, for his father’s possible bail or remanding to house arrest, lawyers must petition not GMA but the Sandiganbayan.

At Fort Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, where he was transferred with son Jinggoy early Tuesday morning, Estrada chuckled with delight at the events that shook his successor. He had earlier said it was Santiago’s idea, not his, to agitate the loyalists for battle. Just the same, it felt so good to play god with the lives of little people.

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