A day like any other day

When you look back on this day a generation hence,

you would clearly remember that it was a day like any other day: you went to work without a thought that you had to be urgently elsewhere; and you did your share of toil to contribute to the gross national product, without a care of the value of the peso on Friday, it will take care of itself. We closed a chapter.

The old and the new came together when the prosecution team of the Estrada impeachment trial was assembled. First Quarter Storm veterans who became exiles and human rights lawyers, martial law babies who became corporate lawyers, EDSA 1 upstarts who became info and law techies.

After Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had been installed to power, she and/or her advisers (as I understand it; I could be wrong) were not going to initiate any criminal complaints against deposed president Estrada; and were in fact hesitant to prosecute him. Except that, she was informed: there was already a pending criminal complaint for plunder against the deposed president filed by representatives of people’s organizations (endorsed by a hundred or so lawyers) at the peak of his rule, when he was most invincible and all-powerful, in November, 2000.

And, as I understand it, her reaction was, just let it take the normal course. While on a parallel effort she sent emissaries to reconcile with Erap.

Ombudsman Aniano Desierto and his team of prosecutors resolved the preliminary investigation. Then, there were almost a dozen indictments; that day, the PILC lawyers were speeding after Ombudsman Ani Desierto’s bullet-proof car and back-up vehicle on Quezon Avenue going to Sandigan; Atty. Marie Yuvienco almost vomited from dizziness chasing after his car because it was criss-crossing and zigzagging on Quezon Avenue traffic with blaring sirens and lights. Someday, I’ll tell you why the PILC lawyers were speeding. Anyway. One or two of those indictments were dismissed a year later.

When the arrest warrants came out, I don’t know whose idea it was to storm the Erap mansion; maybe that was decided upon because of the crowd growing around it; but there it was on TV.

And a day or two later, Edsa Tres broke out.

Had we been too harsh on Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when we called on her to resign after the Garci tapes? Did we hold her to a higher standard than that we would test other politicians?

Knowing that you would be stoking the fires of the Erap loyalists’ protests and that you would be amplifying their voices and that of the man you are prosecuting for plunder, getting to the place where you had to call for Gloria to resign was fraught with ambivalence, well maybe for a few of us; it was marked by uncertainty, maybe for some or just a few. Are we to install back to power those that we had found to be as corrupt?

That uncertainty of an entire generation that was part of the upheaval would finally be resolved in the next few days, in the next few weeks, and months; as we close a chapter; hopefully, an era. If you doubt the movement of history, do not doubt the wisdom of those who make that history, those who refuse to repeat it, those who refuse to install back to power equally corrupt leaders by foul means, yet dare to reject, and reject resoundingly, unmistakably, and in no uncertain terms, an incumbent cheating president through fifteen million, ten million writing of names in ballots for protest leaders, impeachment leaders, and a detained rebel. No uncertainty there. Do you not see it? Do you not see and hear the silent closing of this era?