Lest the young military adventurists forget, of the several Coup d’ etats launched against the government none has yet succeeded! Fidel V. Ramos’ and Juan Ponce-Enrile’s action, which ultimately led to the original EDSA Uprising, was a BREAK-AWAY and was nowhere near a Coup. How could they even have thought of themselves as trying to overthrow the government when they were the ones at the mercy of all the government’s military might then?! Indeed how could a handful of military rebels even believe that they were about to give birth to a new and BLOODLESS People Power Revolution?

Were it not for the Civilian Intervention so ably and spontaneously called for by Jaime Cardinal Sin, ‘Fidel and Johnny’, could just be the title to a melancholy dirge, similar to Tom Dooley’s! That FVR and JPE were courageous is an understatement. That they just had to do the RIGHT thing for God and Country could be the overriding emotion that carried them through those nerve-wracking and fateful February days. The SPONTANEITY of that moment is what really makes all succeeding military action way below par. Even the recent opposition and Pro-GMA rallies lacked the verve which so characterized the EDSA I mass action, and on the contrary all these present banter look and sound more CONTRIVED and far from real!

Should a Coup be launched by whatever military wing this must have the spontaneous support of the Civilian Majority. It cannot be otherwise. Besides a coup usually turns out bloody and everyone just hates the site of blood, especially on the streets! And since Filipino Blood will be what everybody will be spilling it would indeed be next to impossible to expect the common ‘tao’ to come out and cheer for Filipinos killing their brother Filipinos! Even for a relatively hefty FIVE HUNDRED bucks, which seems to be the going rate per head nowadays, it would really be dumb to try to create a mass hysteria approximating the electric atmosphere of the original People Power Revolt! People just want the money and the food that it could buy. They don’t want to get killed just to get it!

Whatever Coup d ‘etat that might be staged will definitely be one not fully sanctioned by the ENTIRE Armed Forces of the Philippines. It will have to go against the higher chain of command and will therefore not last long enough to be able to bring about all that necessary CHANGE so laboriously mouthed by the Opposition! At the most it will only be a plain, simple, and futile POWER GRAB meant merely to install some power-hungry Oafs in Malacanang!

Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cannot afford to loosen her grip on the Presidency. Even after having achieved that relatively tense and Pyrrhic SONA ‘victory’, she still has a long way to go in recovering her heavily damaged integrity. She really has to prove her detractors wrong in the appropriate venue, which in her case could either be the Presidential Electoral Tribunal, or Congress, which by this time must be aching to impeach her, if only they have the numbers!

Coup or no coup, PGMA will have her hands full and she definitely has to start that Charter Change ball rolling. She cannot have it any other way. Unless of course she’s willing to join her ‘best friend’ in Tanay!