PHOTO BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
One was the typhoon “Glenda.” The typhoon was
sending violent rains and winds through the country’s cities and rural
villages, threatening to knock down the giant effigies and blow away the
flags and streamers that the protesters had prepared especially for the
occasion.
The other storm was
none other than the president herself, who was at the House of
Representatives just a few blocks away from where the protesters were
holding their program. A few days before, she had ordered the Philippine
National Police (PNP) to beef up security throughout Metro Manila,
specially around the Batasan Complex.
In an interesting
twist of fate, the typhoon was originally named “Gloria,” but the
Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services
Administration (PAGASA) changed the name to “Glenda” in deference to the
president.
Rally leaders said
the name should not have been changed. The president, they said, is just
as vicious as the storm turned out to be – if not even more so.
The two storms
notwithstanding, the protesters went on anyway. They braved the rains and
winds that threatened to send them all to the sickbed the next day. They
braved the heightened security, which threatened another violent dispersal
even as they had an approved permit to rally.
In so doing, they
drove home a message that was in itself a storm. Bulatlat
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