If you build it, they won't come.

(From Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Byline: Conrado de Quiros

YOU don't know whether to laugh or cry. That is, at Malacanang's explanation for why only a gaggle of people went to Edsa to, as Jaime Cardinal Sin put it, "move to whatever action may be called for and necessary to guard our President and the legitimate government and to keep our nation in the way of peace." Dodie Limcaoco's explanation in particular is that the people did not heed Sin's call because they did not need to. They were confident his boss was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

Well, by that logic, the civil society groups that came out in support of Corazon Aquino when her regime was being buffeted by coup after coup were completely distrustful of the capabilities of the person who toppled Marcos. By that logic, Cardinal Sin, by having the cheek to ask the faithful to mass at the Edsa Shrine, would have been guilty of doubt or lack of faith in the President who came to power without having to fight for it. Talk of turning a bad thing into a good thing. This one beats them all.

It wasn't just Cardinal Sin, in fact, who issued the call. I saw several civil society leaders, ex and current, also asking people to come to Edsa to keep vigil over our freedoms and defend our democratic way of life, whichever came first, or more lucratively. From where I stood, or sat glued to the TV, it looked more than anything else like a loyalty check among the civil society groups or individuals who had benefited from the GMA administration. As it turned out, few of them had the decency to be grateful. Well, you know who your friends are: they're the ones who turn out in your hour of need.

In fact, it's not very hard to see why Sin's and the civil society groups' intended blockbuster at Edsa bombed out, pun fully intended.

The most immediate explanation for it is that everyone was taken by surprise. The coup was a bolt from the blue. No one was prepared for it psychologically. There was nothing during the whole day of Saturday to suggest any political storm was brewing, except for those who got text messages in the afternoon saying Malacanang had called for an emergency Cabinet meeting at 4 p.m. to discuss the coup. I was one of them. But I didn't think much of it until early evening when the text messages flew thick and fast that the coup was really about to take place. That very night, the messages warned.