thank god for journalists like conrado de quiros

this entry is nothing compared to the amount of service you continue to give the country and the citizens.

i’ve always been a fan of the brilliant conrado de quiros. and yes, i’ve been posting some of his articles for a couple of times here…but please, don’t punish me with unauthorized posting of your articles. i’m just sharing your wisdom with the rest of the world.

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MANILA, Philippines - Heaven plays tricks on earth, on this spot of earth more than others. The last couple of Edsas had one sublime irony and that was that they both came shortly after the rulers had just won a seemingly resounding victory. It was at their moment of greatest triumph that the rulers suffered their greatest defeat.

In Ferdinand Marcos’ case, he had just won the vote in the Snap Election of Feb. 7, 1986. Of course the elections were marked by massive fraud and even more massive violence, the latter most massively visiting Evelio Javier who was shot in front of the capitol building and, wounded and bleeding, was chased all the way down to the toilet of a shop across the park and finished off by his assassins. Despite that, Marcos was proclaimed winner and he strutted about proclaiming himself to have gotten a fresh mandate from the people.

A couple of weeks later, a throng flocked to the camps at Edsa to protect a beleaguered crew of military renegades. Four days later, Marcos was gone.

In Erap’s case, he had just won a crucial vote in the Senate-turned-impeachment court. On Jan. 16, the senators allied with Erap, including Juan Ponce Enrile and Miriam Defensor-Santiago (why am I not surprised?) voted to not open an envelope that presumably contained evidence against Erap. They won 11-10 and danced for joy, literally in the case of Tessie Oreta, metaphorically in the case of everybody else. The court had spoken, Erap said, that was the end of it.

It was in fact the end of Erap. Four days later, he was gone.

In GMA’s case, she had just won a vengeful victory in the House against a newfound enemy. JDV had become unreliable and could not be trusted when the next round of impeachment bids came along. So while GMA continued to profess her undying support for JDV, her two sons distributed the knives among the representatives, with the appropriate incentives to loosen arthritic arms, and mounted a parody of “Julius Caesar” on the Batasan floor. They were so certain of victory they were toasting each other with champagne before the vote, flush with power, drunk with power, blind with power.

But before they could gloat over JDV’s bleeding body, one that the nation little mourned, a bolt flashed out from the blue, like Yahweh sending lightning in the direction of Baal. One unheard-of fellow named Jun Lozada came along to say his piece, to speak his truth. In an instant, the world changed. In an instant life was turned back on its feet, the exalted humbled and the humble exalted. In their moment of sweetest victory, the Arroyos found their bitterest defeat.

If history holds, we should be dancing in the streets very soon.

CBCP head Angel Lagdameo calls this turn of events providential, and truly you’re hard put to find a better word. Exactly three weeks ago, I would never have thought it remotely possible. Exactly three weeks ago, GMA was at her most triumphant, the road open for her to rule forever. Notably through Charter change to be rammed through by Prospero Nograles. Today Nograles stands to be the shortest-lived Speaker ever. Today, GMA is fighting for her life.

What has happened in that small crack of time is that something has roared back to life and given life back to the country. That something is public outrage. Loud, explosive, spontaneously combustive outrage. Only three weeks ago, I myself was slowly drifting into the camp that had given it up for dead. Nothing could seem to shake us from what everyone (rightly) called apathy, no worse act of wrongdoing could stoke our simmering anger into a raging fire.

Then suddenly: You could not have been at Ayala a couple of weeks ago and not seen the outrage ripping through the crowd. You could not have watched “Harapan” on TV the day after and not heard in Lozada’s 92 percent rating the outrage booming like Joshua’s trumpets. You could not have stood at La Salle Greenhills still the day after and not smelled the outrage rising like early morning fog to cover the stench of Pasig River. You could not have walked through any part of Katipunan and the University Belt last Friday and not tasted the outrage like the first drops of rain after a pitiless drought. You could not have breathed, or existed, or lived, these past three weeks, riding in trains and jeepneys and FX’s, listening to radio and TV, talking to classmates, friends and coworkers, and not have felt the outrage throbbing wildly in the pit of this land like a lover’s heart.

A great deal of this owes to Jun Lozada, and I do not know that we have thanked him enough for it. When Danny Lim and his comrades came out to damn the damnable a couple of Edsas ago, they were armed only with the idea of “withdrawal of support.” Today the hordes that will come out to change the changeable, which hopefully will include Lim’s comrades as well—a soldier’s duty is to follow the chain of command, not to become a link in the chain of evil—will be armed not just by the force of “withdrawal of support” but the grace of “expression of support.” Not just by a need to negate all that is rotten but by the need to affirm all that is life-giving, not just by the need to stamp out all that is evil but by the need to uphold all that is good, not just by the need to scorn what we should have scorned long ago but by the need to embrace the hope or possibility we could be ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things, we could be finite beings dreaming impossible dreams, we could be Jun Lozadas saying our piece, speaking our truth before heaven and earth.

If history holds: But then history has always been in our hands.