Once More, with Feeling

*sigh*

Okay, first off, this is what I get for doing the ostrich bit. In one very real sense, it is infinitely nicer to jump into Junon and go hunt Aqua King along with the rest of the pROSE population than give a damn about what these stupid polticians are doing to the country. Besides, I think I'm more of a use there than in RL, since other players thank my Escort for healing them and keeping them from losing 3% of their experience points.

Anyway, enough off-topic peregrinations. As I said, this Tuesday seems to be the opening act for the nth escalation of the Gloriagate. If I was still acting as the Mentat for my generation (and not, as mentioned above, going adok over pROSE), then perhaps I would have noticed that there was a political angle to one of the most... confusing "holidays" I've ever seen. "Semi-holiday," as other pundits described it.

Sometime today, Ma'am Dinky, along with Sec. Butch Abad and some of the "Hyatt 10" members (Hyatt TEN, okay, Sec. Bunye?) alleged that the Palace, specifically through Gabby Claudio with orders from La Gloria herself, ordered the filing of the Lozano complaint. This is a serious charge. A lot of people, whether in pol-ops or not, CivSoc or general public, believe that Atty. Oliver Lozano filed the first of the impeachment charges as a ploy from Malacañang to torpedo the whole impeachment. One, it can prevent the passage of other charges because the '87 Consti was clear on there being only ONE complaint, per year. If in case some technicality allows the passage of others, like the Amended Lozano, then the thinking was the Lozano complaint could act as fallback for the anti-impeachment people to either strike the complaint on the Committee level for lack of sufficiency in substance, or it'd be a weak case vs. the President if in case it ascends to a now-seemingly hostile Senate.

There have been rumors going around political and CivSoc circles that the House Committee on Justice will "kill" the impeachment today. In fact, we've just heard that LP stalwart Tony Roman of Bataan will vote "abstain," and this is one of the "hardcore" pro-impeachment reps of the LP. Rep. Vargas resigned yesterday from the Party, officially because he was anti-impeachment (being pro-status quo) and as an objection to the pressure being exerted by the pro-resign Liberals for Party congressmen to sign the impeachment. We've heard that the Palace is using a carrot-and-stick approach to keep congressmen from signing the complaint.

What are the implications of what's happening - and probably will happen - this week? People have been talking about, and looking for, Gloriagate's "Second Envelope." This is, of course, in reference to the legendary trigger event that launched People Power II last 2001. God knows the anti-Gloria groups have tried so hard: the setting-up of Bunye with the first release of the Gloriagate tapes; the coming-out of Samuel Ong; the rallies after the fallout stemming from the President's apology; July 8. That's at least four major assaults on a supposedly unpopular president and she's still there. And as Jove Francisco reported in his blog, the President and her men are still largely, kampante, confident.

Is the killing of the impeachment Gloriagate's "Second Envelope?" Two Sundays ago, the former KOMPIL II groups gathered at DLSU-GH to convene the "Black and White Movement." I was supposed to go but my body thought it was much nicer to oversleep on a Sunday and I woke at past 2:oo p.m. I don't know what happened there, and, more importantly, how the gathered Moderates went about the whole gathering. In such crisis situations, the mood of the people involved is a much better gauge on where the body will go than whatever slogans are chanted or manifestos released. When we held the All-Leaders Conference in January 2001, the mood was rather dark, and some of us in the youth contingent were going for each other's throats during debates because of the sense of impending defeat. In fact, the discussions ended on the option for civil disobedience.

One week later, though, the "Second Envelope" happened and PP2 was well on its way...

Nnnnoooo, we didn't plan that. Well, we were hoping for one, since October 2000, but... Well. C'est la guerre, I guess.

So. Do we have an escalation? Still monitoring. In my opinion, the impeachment is dead outside of an Act of God (like last time?). The oust-GMA movement may be, too. The mood of the general public is... different. What about the surveys, you say? Well, what about them? Although I have an appreciation for such tools of research, I am still skeptical about the claim that what a thousand people say is truly reflective of the moods and thoughts of 80+ million people. And as Heisenberg implied in his celebrated Uncertainty Principle, the mere act of observing the subject of study changes the natural state of that subject. A person who probably wouldn't care less about Gloria on a usual day would probably tell you how horrible he/she thinks the prez is when you ask that person. It's like with Values Ed class: everyone will say smoking, boozing, cheating and pre-marital sex is bad, yet will not think twice about doing the abovenmentioned in the first possible instance.

Again, I am not pro-Gloria; I think she has messed up royally. I am also pro-impeachment and would love to see the proceedings happen again.

But, the rules of this war seemed to be so vastly different from the one we fought so ardently four years ago...

*sigh*