A Long Night’s Journey into Day

Being a chronology of events, more or less, beginning on May Day eve up to the afternoon of Labor Day, one of strangest, most riotous days, give or take a few bashed heads, in modern Philippine history.

April 30, Monday

– In her regular press conference in Malacañang, President Arroyo declares that an attempted power grab the night before by forces loyal to her jailed predecessor Joseph Estrada has "fizzled out". She says she wishes that they would act so she would have the opportunity to "crush them". She shows a souvenir photo of her with all her generals and men taken on the night of Blue Sunday.

– A late afternoon downpour fails to dampen the spirits of the Estrada loyalists massed on EDSA, but it causes the breakdown of technical equipment of TV Net 25 and radio station dzEC, the Iglesia ni Cristo-owned media outlets that had exclusive extensive coverage of the five-day (and running?) revolt.

May 1, Tuesday

– In the dead of night, the sleepless EDSA Tres brigade begins marching toward Mendiola, vowing to retake the Palace and reinstall their former matinee idol to the presidency. Due to maximum tolerance, or possibly aching bones of the presidential guard following a watchful Sunday night of coup rumors, the loyalists practically succeed in entering Malacañang grounds. When they are turned back, a full-blown day-long riot, complete with looting and over-turning and burning of vehicles, ensues, resulting in a few dead and scores of casualties from both sides.

– At about 6 a.m., Estrada and son Jinggoy, both facing plunder charges, are transferred to an in-house air-conditioned prison in Sta. Rosa, Laguna after undergoing a medical check-up at Veterans Memorial Hospital. Almost simultaneously, elements of the Eastern Police District disperse what remains of the loyal forces on EDSA. A STAR photographer gets a dart in the hand.

– Early in the morning, with pitched battles still ongoing on JP Laurel Street and other roads near Malacañang, President Arroyo, her eyebags a trifle prominent, goes on TV with Interior Secretary Jose Lina, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and Adviser on the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita to show that they are very much in control, if on the verge of nodding off to sleep. Lina says that never in all his 17 years of activism has he seen anything like that morning’s bloody rally.

– At mid-morning, police begin firing warning shots to disperse the crowd armed with rocks, pipes, home-made shotguns and similar crude weapons. Cars and media vehicles are overturned, looted and set on fire, a reporter’s handbag is snatched, another broadcaster gets a lump in the head; a police station is overrun. Loyalists arrested are promptly beaten up and booked.

– By noon, Mrs. Arroyo declares "a state of rebellion" in Metro Manila. This is laughed off by opposition Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile who doubts if the Constitution provides for such a thing. He is later arrested for sedition by police intelligence chief Rey Berroya. In a press conference at Club Filipino a while earlier, Enrile and other opposition senators deny that they incited anyone, much less a sleepless, hungry mob, to sedition.

– People power 2 stalwarts start cleaning up the EDSA Shrine as soon as the last loyalist is sent packing, and police and military secure the site for an afternoon thanksgiving Mass by His Turbulent Eminence, or Eminent Turbulence, Jaime Cardinal Sin, to celebrate the retaking of the Holy Mother’s Shrine by the tunay na anak ng Diyos, no matter what JV what’s-his-name says. Sen. Robert Jaworski is turned away from the Mass for fear that he might be lynched by the crowd.

– In a television interview with Gene Orejana early in the evening, the President explains the reason for the declaration of a state of rebellion, and says that the acts of the loyalists allowed her to "crush them". –Juaniyo Y. Arcellana