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Angered by what they describe as the "death of truth and justice", thousands of indignant Filipinos, with the blessing of Roman Catholic and Protestant church leaders, are taking to the streets in a protracted campaign to remove their president, Joseph "Erap" Estrada.

On the night of January 16, just hours after the Senate voted down a proposal to open an envelope said to contain proof that President Estrada was corrupt, protesters gathered at various points in the capital and other cities.

Twenty-four hours later the crowd that had gathered at a historic shrine in the capital had swelled to become the biggest gathering yet to call for the president's removal.

"Stay here until all evil is conquered by good, and all corruption is conquered by integrity. Stay here and keep watch," the nation's most influential cleric, Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila, told the crowd of 200 000 gathered outside the shrine on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, commonly known as the EDSA shrine. The cardinal's words signaled the beginning of what has been dubbed People Power II, a repetition of the popular uprising that toppled President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

Graffiti hastily written in many places in Manila proclaims that "the fight is now in the streets." At the same time, the Couples of Christ, a mainly middle-class Catholic organization, has placed full-page advertisements in newspapers with the heading "Guilty", demanding Estrada's dismissal. The advertisements call on "all patriots" to converge on the EDSA shrine and on meeting places in other cities to hold a 24-hour vigil in the next few days "until President Estrada resigns".

The advertisements include a quote from Paul's letter to the Romans (13:11): "And do this because you know the time has come; it is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed."

Referring to the vote that stopped the Senate tribunal from opening the envelope containing bank documents, Cardinal Sin declared: "We know that the senators are not pursuing the truth. They are pursuing the acquittal of the president."

In a highly emotional meeting on January 16, the Senate court voted 11-10 not to admit the documents as evidence. "With all the evidence, only the foolish and the crazy will say that he [President Estrada] is as innocent as a dove and as innocent as a baby," Cardinal Sin said.

The vote triggered the resignation of the Senate president, a senator-judge and the prosecution panel, forcing the Senate, on January 17, to call for an indefinite adjournment of the impeachment hearings. Public prosecutor Jokes Arroyo said the country was now on the verge of a constitutional crisis with a "damaged" Senate, a "paralyzed" House of Representatives, an impeached president, and a possible postponement of national elections scheduled for May.

Cardinal Sin expressed the fear shared by many Filipinos when he said that the vote on the envelope was a preview of senators' voting intentions concerning the guilt of the president.

President Estrada faces charges of culpable violation of the constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, and betrayal of public trust. The Philippines Senate, constituted as the impeachment court, was receiving the prosecution's evidence of graft and corruption when the vote on the admission of evidence was taken.

The public prosecutors are members of the House of Representatives.

Bishops of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) have called all the church's members onto the streets "to denounce in unequivocal terms the travesty of truth and justice".

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January (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45