Estrada’s pardon and the siege of May 2001

Disgraced president Joseph Estrada has been pardoned by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. To many Filipinos, Arroyo’s move was not a surprise. But to journalist Carlos Conde, it reminded him, for some reason, of May 2001, when Estrada supporters stormed Mendiola, hoping to lay siege on Malacanang. He filed his report on that siege, “Entering the war zone: ‘I saw nothing but rage’”, for the now defunct CyberDyaryo, an online newsmagazine.

By Carlos H. Conde
Cyberdyaryo
Published: May 3, 2001

MANILA — It looked like a scene from “Under Fire”, an ’80s movie on the Nicaraguan revolution. The remains of burned-out cars on the usually bustling avenue spoke of the violence that had just transpired there. Policemen and soldiers were resting by the wayside, ready to face another onslaught from the Estrada loyalists who had engaged them in a running street battle since morning.

Signs, billboards and shop windows were broken. Security guards of commercial establishments stood behind closed doors, peering through shattered glass windows and iron grills. Stores were closed, personnel opening their doors cautiously, looking left and right, as if they were afraid something terrible might come at any moment.

Recto Avenue all the way to the Mendiola Bridge was also reminiscent of Los Angeles after the LA riots precipitated by the unpopular court decision on the Rodney King case. (Rodney King was an African-American who was beaten up by elements of the Los Angeles police. The incident was captured on video by an amateur photographer.)

About a dozen people were cannibalizing a delivery van whose tires had been punctured and whose front hood had been forced open, exposing its insides for the looters to feast on. Each time one of the looters managed to get a piece of the van, he would run away - only to return a few seconds later. The scene was almost primal.

A few meters from the van was a fire truck trapped on Recto Avenue’s center island marked “San Lazaro,” its tires deflated, its windshield broken. There were also signs that it, too, had been looted.

4 p.m. on Recto Avenue

It was around 4 p.m. In the distance, a crowd of about a hundred pro-Estrada rallyists had gathered near Isetann, the department store on the corner of Recto and Quezon Boulevard. Every so often, they would back off from the center of their attention then, they would immediately return to it.

Near them, in front of stores that sold bootlegged CDs, VCDs and computer software, were about a dozen young men, many of them bare-chested, their hair dyed, acting menacingly. The noisy bunch gathered around someone distributing what looked like cooked rice in plastic bags.

A group of five, food in hand, walked 10 meters away and, using newspapers that had been kicked around by the wind, spread their food right in the middle of the road and started to eat. Every so often, one of them playfully smacked another in the face, and the latter, grinning, hollered, “Putang ina mo! (You son of a bitch)”

This happy group of teenagers were separated from the crowd near Isetann by remnants of what looked like a barricade on the corner of Morayta. Beyond this point was another group of people — not bare-chested, and not playful — who just stood there, watching the other side, as though looking into a glass cage. They had stern expressions on their faces, in contrast to the jolly disposition of the others who were about 50 meters away.

There seemed to be a psychological line that prevented them from stepping into the other side and take part in what looked like fun. Hands in their pockets or folded across their chests, they said nothing, not even to one another.