Numerous commentaries on what happened at the Edsa Shrine on Jan. 20, 2001 – the most recent one being that of a retired magistrate—have written about an Edsa II Revolution. I have disputed the claim that what happened then and there constituted an Edsa Revolution II. An Edsa Revolution did not take place at the Edsa Shrine on Jan. 20, 2001.
Only one revolution has taken place at the Edsa Shrine, and that is the Edsa Revolution, i.e., the military-supported civil uprising that unfolded during the four-day period, Feb. 22 to 25, 1986 that put an end to the dictatorial regime of President Ferdinand Marcos. No revolution other than the Edsa Revolution has taken place. There is no need for the Roman-numeral designation I or II.
The way to justify the position that there is no such thing as Edsa II is not to discuss what precipitated the Feb. 22 to 25, 1986 event and identify the principal individual participants in that drama. The way to do so, rather, is to discuss the antecedents of the Jan. 20, 2001 event at the Edsa Shrine and recall the train of events that followed the famous Senate vote on the issue of opening, at the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada, of the second Jose Velarde envelope.
Any law student who has studied Political Law and Constitutional Law knows that the usual coup d’ etat—French for blow against the government—is one launched, for one reason or another, by a country’s military establishment. The Edsa Revolution was a civilian-religious uprising supported not by the top leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines but by the civilian head of the country’s military establishment and the head of the national police force (Philippine Constabulary/ Integrated National Police). What the retired magistrate chooses to call an Edsa Revolution was not a military putsch as that term has always been defined; the AFP leadership came into the picture only later.
The so-called Edsa Revolution II was neither a civilian nor a military-instigated coup. It was a judicial coup d’ etat instigated from the magistrate’s court by the then-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and one SC member and subsequently assented to by the rest of the High Court.
Consider the following excerpts from the retired magistrate’s account of the events of January 16-20, 2001 (The “I” in the account refers to the magistrate. My comments are in parentheses).
1. “(T)he prosecutors’ walkout was triggered by the refusal of the Senate, voting 11-10, to open the so-called envelope that allegedly contained damning evidence showing that Estrada allegedly held P3.3 billion in a secret bank account under the name Jose Velarde.” (My comment: Anyone who knows anything about the Philippine governmental system knows that the Senate, made up of elected people, is a body co-equal with the Supreme Court, whose members are unelected. The Senate had every right under the Constitution to vote as it did. When did the Supreme Court acquire the right to negate and supplant the Senate’s will on an issue? To repeat, Senators are elected by the people whereas SC justices do not have a popular mandate. Parenthetically, the second Jose Velarde envelope, when subsequently opened, contained no money.)
2. “In disgust Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. resigned as Senate President.” (So what if the Senate President resigned? The majority of the other Senators could easily, and properly, have elected another Senate President.)
3. “After the Cabinet, the armed forces and the police withdrew their support from Estrada and pledged their allegiance to Arroyo, I knew that Estrada could no longer govern.” (Again, I ask, when did the Supreme Court, or members of it, acquire the right to determine when a sitting President (can) no longer govern? If at all, that determinative right belongs to the other political department of the government, to wit, Congress. Moreover, as Commander-in-Chief, Estrada had the authority to replace the defecting service chiefs with other high-ranking officers, who probably would have been only too glad to receive promotions. And President Estrada could easily have issued an order instructing undersecretaries to take over the now-Secretaryless Cabinet departments in an acting capacity. To say that Estrada “could no longer govern” is to speak without factual basis. Estrada still enjoyed much support beyond the civil-society network and the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Indeed, the magistrate spoke in his latest commentary about “a large pro-Estrada crowd massed (in Malacañang)”).
4. Finally, there are the anti-Estrada arguments about the former president’s “constructive resignation,” his hearsay wish to resign, the entry in Executive Secretary Angara’s diary —wonder of wonders!—about Estrada’s alleged decision to give up Malacañang and his departure from the Palace. (Constitutionally and judicially speaking, all these circumstances do not amount, in the words of a Shakespearean character, to “an ounce of warm spit”. While I have never been a strict-constructionist lawyer, I do believe that a resignation, especially the resignation of a President, must be formal and not “constructive”. When US President Richard Nixon was forced to resign as President in 1974, he signed an instrument of resignation. Only people in the construction industry resort to constructive resignation.)
And the person whom the magistrate and his constructive-resignation friends shoe-horned into Malacanang? Gloria Arroyo has been under hospital arrest for six years on corruption and plunder charges.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com