History, indeed, repeats itself. Four years and five months ago, President Joseph Estrada was forced to leave Malacañang amidst allegations of corruption in his administration. Then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took oath as President with the famous Our Lady of EDSA as the background. Now, as controversies rock her leadership, is the same fate waiting for her?

The ill-termed “Gloriagate” scandal started from the expose of a clergyman accusing some government officials and members of the First Family of receiving money from jueteng. It was followed by a wiretapped audio conversation between a woman and a man, with the woman asking if she could lead her rival by one million votes. Weeks later, GMA, in a national television, confirmed that indeed, the woman’s voice was hers and she was asking the Filipino people for forgiveness for what she called a “lapse in judgment”. Two days after, an emotional Susan Roces, speaking supposedly for the greater number of Filipino who were deprived of their votes, angrily lashed on GMA.

The hours of July 8 was thought of as GMA’s last hours in office, as thousands of crowd massed in the roads of Makati demanding her resignation. As if to put pressure for her to step down, former President Cory Aquino, several key political allies including Sen. Franklin Drilon, and 10 members of her cabinet chorused in asking her removal from office. Joining them are the political opposition, the so-called “civil society” and militant groups. Political analysts theorized that, if not for former President Fidel Ramos going to Malacañang to show his “unwavering” support to the President, GMA may now be sharing Erap’s fate.

Looking beyond, one can notice that the people gathered in Ayala Avenue on that day were, the same people who were either supporters of Erap, FPJ, and the disgusted members of the “civil society”. Was it another show of force of the political opposition for them to reclaim their lost glory? Was the “civil society” staging a rally for the people, or just for the elite circle they best represent?

These people who were supposed to be rallying for the cause of the Republic may not be serving the cause itself, yet they are moving to serve their hidden agenda. They, who were rallying for a change in the entire government bureaucracy to correct a supposedly illegal ascension to power of GMA, were taking the short cut instead of the right path. These people thought of people power as a way of ousting or asking the President to step down. Is it not that they were just having a “People Power fatigue”? EDSA People Powers 1 and 2 (many considered the May 1, 2001 event a mob rule, not people power) are enough. Let’s get to the legal means of removing the President. The impeachment law was legislated so as to empower the people.

Let us rid ourselves of shortcut ways to power. Let us not allow political opportunists use us as a mean of ousting the present government. Let us mature politically as Filipinos. We were not Asia’s first democracy for nothing. As one people of God, let us use our constitutional power to elevate our status as a nation of unity through diversity.