By Juliet Labog-Javellana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:32:00 01/21/2008
Church-elite conspiracy
On Jan. 17, the second night of the vigil, Sin exhorted the people in his homily in a Mass at the Edsa Shrine to “stay here until evil is conquered by good.”
He said there was “only one immoral President and 11 shameless senators” while there were “millions and millions of people who will safeguard the truth and, if necessary, die for the truth.”
Before and after his ouster, Estrada said he was a victim of a grand conspiracy between the elite and the Church.
On Jan. 20, Arroyo was sworn in as President by Chief Justice Hilario Davide.
The first source said the Vatican’s order might have changed the outcome of the anti-Estrada uprising.
“Edsa II could have failed, or it could have become bloody,” said the source.
Archdiocese ‘chopped up’
“At his call, each of these parishes and schools could easily produce 500 warm bodies, or a total of nearly 200,000, who could stay in rallies indefinitely without much logistical problems (they bought their own provisions), and who were so organized they marched to the beat of a single drummer. Indeed, he produced the critical mass, who were joined by many, many others,” Panganiban wrote in his column.
Indeed, in his homily at a thanksgiving Mass after Estrada’s downfall, Sin expressed amazement that food never ran out for the throngs at Edsa. He remarked then that “people power was also food power.”
Panganiban noted in his column that the archdiocese was “chopped up into six groups” after Sin’s death. He did not say whether the chopping up was deliberately done to undermine a Sin-like hold on the archdiocese.
Panganiban was a member of the Supreme Court which, in March 2001, unanimously ruled that Ms Arroyo was the country’s legitimate President. This was after Estrada had petitioned the court to declare him the lawful President.
Davide and Panganiban inhibited themselves from the court decision.
With reports from Nikko Dizon and Cyril L. Bonabente, Inquirer Research
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