In hindsight, the first true sign that the presidency of Joseph Estrada was in significant trouble surfaced about 14 months before former close associate Luis “Chavit” Singson starred in the “Juetenggate” hearings in the Senate. On Aug 21, 1999, the biggest crowd since the 1998 elections gathered at the famous corner of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas in the middle of Makati City, the Philippines, to lambaste new attempts to amend the Constitution, protest the Estrada administration’s creeping cronyism, and denounce insidious assaults on press freedom.

Jaime Cardinal Sin, in 1986 the field marshal of the EDSA People Power millions, called on the faithful in 1999 to “protect our democracy”, and as many as 100,000 responded. Many journalists were among the demonstrators, because of the administration-engineered sale of the Manila Times and the advertising boycott aimed at crippling the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Amando Doronila then wrote: “The extraordinary thing about the rally in Makati this Friday is that it marks a very early politicisation and polarisation of the Filipino people in the life of this government.”

These thoughts return to mind because of the nature of this Friday’s protest rally, which will again be held at the famous intersection in the heart of Makati. Like 1999’s, this year’s demonstration is both widely multi-sectoral and church-organised; like the previous one, this Friday’s mass action will involve both veteran street parliamentarians and Catholic school students; like that last protest, this Friday’s rally can easily be misread by politicians in Malacañang (the office of the Filipino president) as a one-day wonder, a loud but necessary release of the social pressure valve.

In fact, that August action helped seed the ground for the people who would, in time, come out with the damning evidence against Estrada or lead the fight against him, including Sen Teofisto Guingona, Singson and many men and women who testified at the impeachment trial at great risk.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies should surely know enough history to learn how not to tempt the fates. But Speaker Prospero Nograles, perhaps because his own, still-tenuous hold on power in the House of Representatives is determined by the President’s support, has turned his back on his own experience in the parliament of the streets.

“Only members of Congress can vote on these measures and they may possibly be influenced by the public outcry. But the demonstrations on the streets and its leaders cannot vote for or against Cha-cha (Charter change). It’s the vote of congressmen and senators that will count. Not the streets,” Nograles said in a text message.

Technically, he is correct; it is the congressmen and senators who will cast their vote for or against the latest attempt to fast-track Charter change. But unless the republican nature of our government has been changed (and we together with everyone else did not get the memo), it is ultimately the people who will decide. Not only in the dramatic, twice-told tale of a people-powered revolt, but also in the simple legislative sense that the vote of congressmen and senators will have to be ratified by the people.

Nograles belittles this Friday’s gathering by making the distance between congressional initiative and public opinion vaster than it appears (or is, in democratic theory). At most, he grudgingly admits that legislators “may possibly be influenced by the public outcry” (note the double tentative). We can be sure, however, that if the administration coalition’s attempt to amend the Constitution were popular, we would hear precisely the opposite argument. In fact, that’s exactly what happened two years ago, when the administration, through the ministrations of interior and local government secretary Ronaldo Puno, tried to generate a popular ground swell for Charter change, through the ill-fated (and manufactured) people’s initiative. Now that the surveys are clear about the unpopularity of Charter change, administration congressmen have rediscovered the gospel of independent agency: they are representatives of the people, yes, but they were elected to act independently.

The issue of Charter change, however, threatens the body politic with the prospect of an extension, by whatever disguise, of the President’s grip on power. And on this issue, most administration congressmen—from Nograles on down—are not acting independently, but taking their cue from Malacañang.