THAT picture said a thousand words. There was Jose de Venecia looking forlorn and downcast while Edcel Lagman, Luis Villafuerte and company had their hands raised to assent to the killing of the impeachment bid. I remembered Don Corleone in “The Godfather” (in book and movie) looking at the bullet-ridden body of his son and crying bitterly, “Look how they massacred my boy.” What an apt word, “massacre,” despite the victim being only one. I remembered this, but I also remembered that for all his unsavory ways I pitied Don Corleone.

I don’t know that I can say the same thing for Joe de V. He had little right to look tragic or hold back his tears while saying, “Look how they massacred my boy.” The impeachment bid is not his boy. Until fairly recently, it was the unwanted child he kept turning away from his door, along with its mother—an apt image as well this December.

For those who do not like metaphors, that is to say that he was one of those who stabbed the impeachment bid on the back, and laughed while it lay bleeding on the ground. Hell, he was at the head of the pack. “The night of the hundred knives” is the title of the chapter in his biography that talks of his “assassination” as House speaker last year. In fact, that night took place well before it, when he and his lapdogs in Congress took their knives out and plunged it on the first impeachment bid.

You saw that look last week on Joe de V’s face, heartfelt or pa-emote, and the only thing you want to say, as with Miriam Santiago when she lost her bid at the International Court of Justice presumably because of power politics: “Nakarma ka.” Truly, you wonder what kind of karma awaits his former ward and current tormentor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Joe de V now says he’ll take to the streets and lead a protest there against the obscenity that is the murder of the innocent. What can one say? Good luck. Who knows? Maybe his family might follow him in the exercise, though even that seems doubtful.

None of this is to say we should not take to the streets and raise a howl over the obscenity that is the murder of the innocent. All of it is merely to say I personally would rather not see Joe de V there, other than as a member of the audience. I swear the next time I see him on the stage, where he makes it a point to be during the rallies to protest the NBN scam, I am going to boo him. There are limits to the demands of politeness. Or politeness works both ways: I expect him to show the same thing, and more—notably a profoundly contrite air—to a public he has deeply wronged.

Eduardo Ermita says we should exercise sobriety and not heed the calls for us to take to the streets to express our disgust. Due process has taken its course, let us give the system a chance.

If it were merely Joe de V who made that call, Ermita would not even have to make that appeal. But others, with far more credibility and an abiding sense of righteousness, have done so. Among them Bishops Deogracias Iñiguez and Antonio Tobias. “If there are no more legal means, then we resort to extralegal or extra-constitutional means,” said Iñiguez. Both bishops wondered why we cannot mount the same scale of protests the Thais are currently doing to protest corruption and wrongdoing in government.

Alas, that is one of the monumental tragedies of the Philippines: Thailand learns from the Philippines while the Philippines does not learn from itself. The Thais came to the Philippines, studied at IRRI, and developed jasmine rice. We Filipinos hosted the IRRI, pioneered the green revolution, and now import rice from Thailand. The Thais saw People Power, were impressed by it, and now wield it to stop crooks from running government. We Filipinos invented People Power, ousted a couple of tyrants with it, and fell back into the pit of autocratic rule.

It’s all very well to give the system a chance, if that system even remotely represents the voice of the people. Last week Mikey Arroyo had something to say that bears on this. He said that Joe de V’s charges against his father had no ghost of a chance to stand up in court. That is absolutely true, for reasons that have nothing to do with lack of merit, or indeed proof. The impeachment against his mother had no ghost of a chance to stand up in Congress either, for reasons that have nothing to do with lack of substance, or indeed proof. They have to do only with the fact that his mother and father have the courts and Congress in their pockets.

I remember Marcos used to say then by way of a joke: “I’ll let history be my judge. But just to be sure, I’ll write it.” He turned joke into reality, writing, or having university professors write that history with him as apotheosis of the evolution of the nation. Mikey’s parents might as well say: “We’ll let the courts be our judge. But just to be sure, we’ll own the courts.” They’ve turned that into reality as well, the Supreme Court itself ruling that the First Couple have the executive privilege to steal.

We’re back to the Marcos years when everything is process but nothing is due. The only answer to that is People Power. That doesn’t always have to take the form of a mass of people taking to the streets to bring down tyranny—and this one is a tyranny like no other—although I still think that remains a viable option. But it can take other forms, like taking to the virtual avenues of the Internet, mounting a signature campaign to recall GMA, and waging civil disobedience, especially refusing at least to declare taxes (since paying them is guaranteed by VAT). That is the only way we may take back what is ours, which is our right to govern ourselves.

It’s all very well to give the system a chance, except for one thing:

Now and at the hour, GMA is the system.