not surprisingly, no one cares to remember Edsa Dos, obviously because installing gloria macapagal arroyo turned out to be a grievous mistake, like a giant 10-year step backward.  what if, instead of ousting estrada, we had allowed the impeachment trial of erap to take its course.

if he had been convicted, then gloria would have assumed power legally and constitutionally and would not have owed her position to the hilario davide supreme court that happily legitimized the unconstitutional, and to the angelo reyes military that readily changed sides after some smart wheeling and dealing behind the scenes.  then, maybe arroyo’s 9-, almost 10-year, rule would have turned out differently.  and maybe she would not have been so heavyhanded in dealing with estrada, and Edsa Tres — another major major event that we like to forget — would not have happened.

if he had been acquitted, then what if we had gone to edsa to demand better governance, maybe to insist that gloria accept estrada’s invitation to head the Economic Coordinating Council, or even to take up estrada’s offer of snap elections.  then maybe we would not be where we are now — trying to convict an impeached chief justice who was appointed by gloria and therefore not to be trusted to be impartial when her electoral sabotage case, allegedly weak, comes up before the supreme court.  meanwhile the hacienda luisita ruling is up for “clarification and reconsideration” by the supreme court and the cojuangcos are demanding that the impeached chief justice inhibit himself, hay naku.

the impeachment trial now ongoing reminds too much of erap’s impeachment trial and Edsa Dos.  let it remind too, please, of Edsa Tres, which was not all hakot.  what offends me most is when pundits insist that it’s more a political than a judicial proceeding, meaning that technicalities that work in favor of the defense should be set aside because it is not in the public interest.  this is based, i suppose, on the 70%+ approval rating of the prez, these 70%+ being presumed to be supportive of his campaign to kick out corona and convict gma in line with “daang matuwid”.

so okay, meron ding mass base ang presidente, but i would think that this mass base is a volatile fluid force.  media loves to point out that the masses, based on random on-the-street in-the-palengke interviews, don’t even know who corona is, but hey, they are paying attention to the impeachment proceedings which are not only televised, but covered live on radio and played on buses and jeepneys, and there’s such a thing as a learning curve.  soon they might know enough to make up their own minds, lalo na’t hindi naman sila nagbabasa ng pro-palace spins ng compromised media diyan, mainstream and online.

so ingat ingat lang, senator-jurors who are so early in the game showing your biases and even helping out the surprisingly inept prosecution lawyers (who i guess were more focused on harassing corona into resigning than preparing for trial), like drilon has been doing.  baka sabihin ng masa inaapi si corona, hala!  ingat din, senator-jurors like trillanes who has already said he would be guided by public sentiment.  how to measure public sentiment across classes, short of a referendum?  twould be wiser, and more honourable, to be guided by the evidence, after hearing both the prosecution AND the defense.