Estrada’s pardon and the siege of May 2001

Security in an orange shirt

I was, of course intent on finding out what was going on. I learned that there had been a commotion half an hour before I arrived; there were apparently some cops near Isetann. For some reason, I felt comfortable, safe even, in this potentially hostile environment. (After all, this had been the scene of deadly skirmishes between the marines and the Estrada loyalists just a few hours earlier and the people who were here were obviously part of the mob that the authorities had been trying to quell.) I realized later that it must have been my shirt, an orange shirt — orange being the campaign color of the deposed president Joseph Estrada, and the color of protest for his followers.

I looked around and realized that I and a foreigner covering Mendiola were the only journalists on the scene. Passers-by looked at me quizzically, perhaps wondering what this orange-clad person wearing a press ID was doing in this territory. We approached a man in his early 20s and asked him what he thought of the action that transpired here earlier.

Even before he could answer, about 10 men and boys began milling around us. My comfort level plunged. In between shooting my questions, I glanced at the crowd that surrounded us. Most of them looked calm but some were visibly angry.

‘Why only him?’

“We don’t like what they did to Estrada. The justice system in this country is not fair. We kept silent after his ouster but why do they have to arrest him and subject him to all that humiliation?” said the man we approached, in Tagalog. “And why only him?”

“Yeah,” interjected another. “Why only him when Ramos stole far too much money from the government?”

“All we want is for Erap to be treated with respect,” another chimed in.

Then one man in his 30s, reeking with liquor, his eyes droopy, thrust himself into our little circle so that his face was only about two feet away from mine. “Why are you here? You want to ask question about my country so you can compare it with yours?” he snarled at the foreign journalist in broken English.

The foreigner looked at me, a tinge of worry in his eyes. My knees were shaking. Shit, I told myself, this is precisely why my editors advised me not to venture into hostile territory. During the six-day rally at the Edsa Shrine, journalists were often harassed by Estrada supporters. Earlier that day, on Mendiola and Recto, television reporters and cameramen were attacked by the angry mob. But I reasoned to myself that I was not representing the direct objects of the loyalists’ ire: the big media outfits like the Philippine Daily Inquirer, GMA-7 or ABS-CBN. I was with CyberDyaryo and the Washington Post! It was too late to realize that to these people, it didn’t matter where I worked. And I had on an orange shirt!

“What do you want to know?” the drunken man asked. The foreigner replied, haltingly, that he was there to write about the political situation and that he was interviewing the Estrada loyalists precisely to know their sentiments. That seemed to have a calming effect because the drunk stepped back. But he regarded us with his face full of disdain, if not rage. I half-expected him to smack the foreigner in the face.

Where were the cops when we needed them?

I realized that the small crowd had closed in on us and if they decided to beat us up, we’d have no chance for escape. The video image of the Manila policeman being stoned and then beaten up by the mob in the early hours of the siege Monday morning was replayed in my head. My knees were still shaking. The cops! Where are the cops! They were in Mendiola, some 300 or so meters away, resting, recovering their strength.

I felt my wallet in my back pocket — and immediately caught myself. Geez, I thought, my instincts were betraying the condescension I may have had toward these guys. I was behaving no differently than those text messagers who insulted and poked fun at Estrada’s loyalists. The thought tormented me.

Thankfully, the man who smelled of liquor left the crowd, but not before shouting, to no one in particular, in Tagalog, “You sons of bitches! Stop doing this to Erap!” The others joined in: “Tell your friends in the media to be fair!”

As we walked away from the crowd, I found myself pacing briskly, walking ahead of the foreign journalist. The remnants of the barricade at the Morayta intersection suddenly looked like a friendly no-fire zone to me. If we could just get beyond that point, I thought, we’d be safe.