Word: estradas
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...Estrada had badly miscalculated in his bid to beat the impeachment trial. By winning the battle to suppress the evidence on a technicality - his defenders argued the material in the envelope was not relevant to the original impeachment charges - Estrada would lose all. It was that small victory that triggered the tumult that would topple the President. When it became clear that a majority of the 21 Senators was prepared to defend Estrada, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel cast his vote against Estrada, and then resigned his post. The entire prosecution team followed suit, throwing the fate of the impeachment trial...
That's where Calimlim went when he left the drunken, distraught Estrada on Friday afternoon, joining Reyes, civilian Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado and a roll call of generals and admirals who had similarly shifted their support from Estrada to Arroyo, who had been his Vice President. The Filipino brass who hold so much power in this troubled democracy were welcomed into the opposition stronghold like conquering heroes by some 700,000 demonstrators. Reyes pledged his support to Arroyo in front of the crowd. Clearly grateful for the military allegiance that now seemed to ensure her ascension to the presidency, Arroyo...
...Estrada was given a deadline by a panel of opposition negotiators: he had to resign by Saturday at 6 a.m. All through Friday night, demonstrators continued to gather. This has been called the pager revolution for good reason: within minutes of the Senate vote, text messages had flashed through the Manila ether telling anti-Estrada Filipinos to GO TO EDSA. Hundreds of thousands converged on the capital, following directions to, as one message put it, WEAR BLACK TO MOURN THE DEATH OF DEMOCRACY. Said another text message: EXPECT THERE TO BE RUMBLES...
While the television cameras were focused on the rallies - and the commentators became lost in reveries about People Power revisited - behind-the-scenes negotiations had been going on nonstop between military factions loyal to Estrada and those who advocated a quick coup to depose the President. Chief of Staff Reyes and Defense Secretary Mercado had made their fateful call to Estrada after a luncheon attended by all the top commanders. The officers agreed that renouncing Estrada was the best course, in part because some commanders were urging more drastic resolution. If the military did not come to a consensus, there...
Former President Fidel Ramos had already warned during a visit to Hong Kong earlier in the week of the danger of a "palace coup" by forces allied with Estrada. And other retired officers were already trying to condition the public and the military rank and file to accept the notion that military intervention of one kind or another was a viable option. An ad in the Philippine Daily Inquirer sponsored by the Philippine Military Academy's Class of 1962, whose president is retired General Lisandro Abadia, promised, "The AFP and the PNP will have a crucial role to play...