Outside Congress, assembled in joint session for the address, was a far greater assembly of people, all crying for her resignation amid charges of corruption and poll fraud. The hostile crowd, the biggest so far against her administration, necessitated a full military-police alert.
But the day passed, colorful and eventful as such a day had never been before, and yet falling far short of the direst of expectations. If God works in mysterious ways, the day of the SONA had to be one.
First, for whatever they may have hoped to achieve, opposition senators and congressmen who have heretofore spared no effort to shame the president, chose to boycott her speech instead, thereby unwittingly avoiding what could have been a far worse scenario of a walkout.
With her enemies out of the hall, Arroyo had a building full of supporters to herself, giving her that much needed confidence to deliver her speech in a forceful and deliberate manner than if she was with a pack of wolves, uncertain as to when they will spring for an attack.
Indeed, it is to be presumed Arroyo approached her constitutional duty to deliver the SONA with dread. The very palpable eyebags she sported suggested in no uncertain terms she had been agonizing at night.
With the possibility of heckling or, worse, a walkout out of the way, Arroyo proceeded to titillate Congress with a forceful endorsement of charter changes that would pave the way for a shift to a parliamentary-federal form of government.
Now, not so much with the senators, but the shift to a parliamentary form of government had been an initiative that had long been burning in the hearts of many congressmen. The Arroyo endorsement made the heart of every congressman skip a beat.
Just the morning before her speech, the political opposition filed an impeachment complaint against Arroyo. To be sure, the impeachment complaint will go through the process. As to which will be cradled in the breast of most congressmen, we do not know.
But mark this well --- removing the president now will derail, or at least delay, in a very costly manner, the desire of most congressmen to rush the necessary changes to the charter that would have a parliamentary form of government in two years at the earliest.
Thus, even if the impeachment complaint goes through the process, it now seems unlikely for Arroyo to be removed by that route. With Congress sufficiently titillated, an outnumbered opposition will likely lose more warm bodies than it can hope to gain.
Outside, the crowds may be getting bigger, but they are still just not big enough to force the issue. July 25 was to have been the second opportunity for those wishing to employ force to remove Arroyo. But again it fizzled.
That is because the crowds are made up mostly of paid mobs who cannot be sustained on a daily basis without eating into someone's pocket, no matter how seemingly inexhaustible, in these economically difficult times.
Those who could have made the difference, the middle classes, have elected to stay out, either too tired of the same old failed routine, or convinced that the reasons to go out are not sufficient or are too contrived.
Or maybe they simply feel that, with so much wrongdoing in government, it is unfair to remove someone on whatever charge and then reward those clamoring for such removal when they are as guilty as hell of the same charge.
We mentioned earlier about God working in mysterious ways. Well, maybe the death of God's most vocal and influential representative in the Philippines at just about this time of crisis had been for a reason that may not have been apparent at the time he died.
Had Sin been alive and called out for another Edsa, Arroyo would have been gone by now. But God recalled Sin before he can do so. Those God left in charge of the talking --- Oscar Cruz, Teodoro Bacani, Robert Reyes --- all have the mouth but not the spirit.