Remembering Just Another Ordinary Day
By Herbert Villalon Docena

IT WAS just another ordinary day at an extraordinary trial.

Despite the significance of the impeachment proceedings against then President Joseph Estrada, boredom, dreariness, and exhaustion were beginning to set in within the freezing confines of the Senate building. It was my last semester in university, and in between Collegian presswork, exams, and rallies, I would commute from Diliman to Pasay City and report for work as a writer for the secretariat of the prosecution panel, in charge of stringing out annotations for distribution to reporters in a flash during breaks.

Chavit Singson had wagged the ledgers, Emma Lim had humiliated Estelito Mendoza, and Clarissa Ocampo had already sprung her fatal surprise. It felt like there was really nothing much to look forward to anymore but the final judgment. In the room where a subplot of history was unfolding, there was to be no indication that it was to come by the end of that day.

The day started out to be so uneventful that I cannot even remember what happened or what I wrote about in our periodic press briefings earlier in the day. Ordinary days were difficult for us in the media group because without anything thrilling happening, our press releases will be stale and formulaic, and we would be pressed to look for new angles or do some additional background research. And so I sat bored at the viewing room in front of our office, semi-shivering in the cold despite my thick jacket, taking notes while watching the television.

And then, of course, Joker Arroyo approached the podium and demanded that the second envelope be opened, heaven be damned.

Then that was when it seemed as though someone had suddenly turned off the super-efficient centralized air-conditioning at the building. A few more grandiloquent speeches and a flare up between Arroyo and a pompous Opus Dei Senator and a break. We knew then and there that our 8 AM to 8 PM working day was to end later than usual. I stood up and took off my jacket.

When I crossed the corridor to the office just before the casting of votes, heavy anticipation had managed to push down the thick cigarette smoke swirling in the no-smoking room. Everyone looked pensive and glum; others were debating among themselves who would say yes and no; others were counting with their fingers, and then gazing beyond the television sets dejected.

I negotiated my way to the session hall, past the hordes of cameramen and reporters swarming around Raymond Fortun and Nani Perez, slipping undetected through the otherwise tight security cordon. I was not allowed access to the hall but I would not have forgiven myself if I did not even attempt to go in. I sat with the reporters at the left side of the hall from the point of view of the senator- judges, my view partly obstructed by a pillar and TV cameras. A loud hush descended when the Chief Justice banged the gavel to resume the trial. Despite the prohibition, almost everyone was already standing when the roll call commenced. I was counting using my fingers, the left hand for the “yes’s” and the right for the “no’s”. There was a soft, collective wail when the Chief Justice declared that the “no’s” have it. Miriam Defensor Santiago struggled to look somber, managing to look contrite and defiant at the same time. Tessie Oreta was, up to that time, still resisting her urge to dance.

All eyes were on the private prosecutors when they promptly stood up and left the hall in one file. Everyone else who were so disgusted to breathe the same air with the 11 senators turned to the exits. It was unusually quiet at the corridor, despite the mad rush for interviews by the reporters and the cameramen.

Back at the office, my officemates and I stood leaning speechless for a long time against the table they use for presscons. Someone entered the door sobbing. I could not believe that it is possible to cry out of so much rage and for such abstract notions as justice and truth and decency and nationhood. And yet I could not believe that I found myself holding back tears welling up in my non-functioning tear ducts.

Around midnight, the secretariat staff reconvened aghast and anxious at the nearby Westin Philippine Plaza to plan for what could not possibly be planned for. That working day would not end still as just several hours later and for the next four days, some of us would bump into each other again somewhere at the EDSA Shrine.

The day turned out to be so ordinary that, a year later, while wavering between hollow triumphalism and fashionable cynicism, I still remember very vividly the outrage and the faith of January 16.

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Herbert Villalon Docena was part of the media group of the prosection panel during the Estrada impeachment trial. He was the editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian when People Power 2 happened.

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