Edsa II: From the Outside Looking In

WHEN THE Kapampangan Rep. Oscar Rodriguez and his fellow prosecutors walked out of the impeachment hearings in the Senate seven years ago, I knew the end was near for Joseph Ejercito Estrada. When an outraged public started gathering in prayer and in protest at Edsa, I knew it would soon be over.

It was history repeating itself and I knew I had to be there.

After seeing action in the frontline that was Pampanga before, during and after the People Power Revolution of 1986, the gathering storm at Edsa in 2001 was one thing I could not afford to miss. I had to be part of it.

This, even if I knew I could not. When the second revolution broke out, I was nowhere near Edsa. I was in the middle of an oppressive New York winter, watching and listening as the Estrada Government slowly started to crumble.

I was on the third day of a two-week holiday in New York, my first real break since I joined the Foreign Service three years ago, when it happened. Had I known that I would be returning to a different milieu, I would not have left Manila at all.

Having been a journalist for many years, I always had to be where the action was. From my baptism of fire as a 16-year-old cub reporter covering countless anti-Marcos demonstrations in the streets of Manila to my reckless adventures as a news correspondent covering a real revolution in the countryside of Central Luzon, I was there.I was there to chronicle history as it unfolded.

One can just imagine my consternation when I was relegated to the sidelines by a revolution that would not wait for me. For the first time in my many years, I was in the outside looking in. I had to content myself watching Edsa II unravel right before my eyes from where I was on the other side of the globe.

There was nothing much I could do. I stayed glued to the developments in Manila, going with little sleep for three straight days, ignoring the bitter winter chill, burning the lines, shouting and cursing and wishing that I was with the throng that gathered for the final showdown back home.

I wished I was there when Oscar Rodriguez walked out following the narrow Senate vote on that Manila envelope that started it all. I wished I was there when my fellow officers at the Department of Foreign Affairs exercised their rights as citizens and lent their presence at Edsa.

I wished I was there when the leaders of the Armed Forces and the National Police came out in open defiance of their commander-in-chief. I wished I was there when our very own Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took her oath as the 14th President of the Republic. I wished I was there when an angry sea of red forced a shamed leader out of Malacañang.

I guess I would just have to console myself with the fact that I was not alone in my frustration. I am sure that countless other Filipinos who, like me, were caught outside the country during the revolution share the same misgivings of having missed out on Edsa II.

Like all the others who would have wanted to be at Edsa, I would just have to find solace with the thought that even if I was thousands of miles away, it was as though I have never left. All throughout, I was there in spirit.