EDITORIAL - How we end today will determine how we begin tomorrow

Today is the day President Arroyo will deliver her State of the Nation Address. It will be the first time the nation will pay less attention to the meat of her address than what happens while delivering it.

Today is make or break day for the embattled president. By tradition, the day of the SONA is the day those who have anything contradictory to say, to say it, in far louder voices, in far fouler moods, in far greater numbers of sufficiently agitated crowds.

This is the day the herd mentality that psychologists have always warned against can manifest itself in dangerous embodiment. Sufficiently agitated crowds in a foul mood need only the slightest provocation to explode into an uncontrollable mass of destructive force.

Out there in that roiling herd will be a strange mix. There will be those honestly fed up with the president but want simply to make a clean breast of pent-up feelings. And there will be those with motives but who cannot initiate anything and are thus shopping around for a ride.

The more dangerous presence will those with a clear and specific agenda, those who have no qualms about actually making things happen. Their long-repudiated strategy of overthrowing government could not have found a better chance to succeed than having a day such as this.

That is what we should be looking out for. More importantly, that is what we should be asking ourselves in order to understand and recognize what to look out for. Do we really need an end and a beginning to take place today?

Ending anything is not really as hard as most people think. Contrary to the claims of many, quitting smoking is actually a cinch. The real hell is in dealing with what comes next. This is what we have to decide today.

Do we really need to overthrow Gloria? That can easily be done. A sufficiently agitated crowd can easily be bidden to do anything. The more unscrupulous can even rig the whole thing by provoking violence, and then it will be all downhill from there.

But do we really need to overthrow Gloria? More importantly, once we do so, are we ready for the consequences or are we just getting carried away by our anger but are in fact unprepared for what comes next? Remember, remember. How we end today will determine how we begin tomorrow.