I read with much interest Fe Zamora?s ?Inside Story: Hyatt 10 vs. Kamag-anak Inc.? My impression was that the people Fe spoke with were practicing revisionism and were already starting to rewrite history. While the idea of those two factions in the Aquino campaign squabbling makes for a riveting headline, there is another deeper, truer and ultimately more riveting one.

Fe?s story suggests two things. One is that the rift in the Aquino ranks was between a group associated with reform (Hyatt 10) and a group associated with conservatism, or indeed with corruption (Kamag-anak Inc.), which birthed the Noy-Bi campaign. Two is that the hijacking of the campaign, or the betrayal of the dream, consisted of the junking of Mar Roxas. Neither is true.

But first off, let me be clear about how I know these things.

I know these things because I kept track of these things. I was never uncomfortable taking an active interest in the Aquino campaign while being with media not just because I urged Noynoy to run but because I never saw myself as participating in a very partisan way in an election. I saw myself as participating in a very partisan way in a project vaster and grander than an election. That was the project of ending nine years of misrule, or indeed illegitimate rule, and ushering in the hope or possibility of a better world. From the start I kept saying that Noynoy was more than an ordinary candidate?no one comes from out of the blue to get the numbers that he did in an ordinary election?and this was more than an ordinary election?his mandate was not to win for himself the presidency but to win for the people their liberty.

From the start I kept saying that this was an Edsa masquerading as an election, which was plain to see in the funeral procession that accompanied Cory to her final resting place, which guaranteed Noynoy, more than any party caucus to decide the standard-bearer, the right, honor and duty to lead a campaign that only incidentally had to do with becoming president. Till the end, I kept saying this was an Edsa masquerading as an election, which was proven by the people massing to the elementary public schools even as an angry sun beat upon the earth, as they massed during Cory?s funeral even as a grieving sky let fall its tears upon the earth.

The rift was never between the Kamag-anak Inc. and the Hyatt 10. From the start, the rift was between the reformist volunteer groups and the trapo political party.

The political party went beyond the Liberal Party. It consisted of, one, the Liberal Party itself, represented by Mar Roxas and Butch Abad, last seen before Cory died and Noynoy became the presidential bet busily organizing the ?Mar for President? campaign and getting nowhere. Two, the ?Hyatt 10,? represented by Cesar Purisima and Dinky Soliman, last seen the eve before Cory asked GMA to resign in the wake of ?Hello Garci? singing fervently in support of GMA ?If We Hold On Together,? in lieu of ?Ring around the rosie/ A pocketful of posies/ Ashes! Ashes!/We all fall down!? They too, showing a horrendous sense of entitlement instead of a shameful show of contrition, were last seen before Cory died and Noynoy became the presidential bet busily organizing the ?Mar for President? campaign and getting nowhere. Three, ?The Firm,? represented by Nonong Cruz, last seen before Cory died and Noynoy became the presidential bet busily organizing the ?Mar for President? campaign and getting nowhere.

No way in hell these people represented reform. These groups merely went from busily organizing the ?Mar for President? campaign to busily organizing the ?Noynoy for President? campaign. They got very far busily organizing the ?We kick out the people around Noy? campaign but got nowhere busily organizing the ?Noynoy for President? campaign. It was under their watch Noynoy?s numbers tumbled. That was the source of the rift, that was the origin of the rift, that was the beginning, middle and end of the rift. For a simple reason:

The people around Noynoy they alienated, pissed off and ejected like flotsam were the volunteer groups.

Mae Paner, better known as ?Juana Change,? expressed the frustration and anger of the volunteer groups who were responsible for Noynoy running for president to begin with, who were the heart and soul of ?the people?s campaign? to begin with, who were not being paid but were working their asses off to usher change simply because they believed in it to begin with, when she challenged a grand gathering of the Noy-Mar forces last Christmas to recognize one thing. That thing was that it was not the Liberal Party the campaign owed itself to first and last, it was the people, as represented by the volunteer forces. Without that fundamental recognition, she proposed, there was little hope for change. Without that elemental recognition, she suggested, no one would juana change.

There was silence after she spoke. It was broken by Butch Abad giving his usual blithe reply that you needed both the volunteer groups and the politicians to succeed. Which was all very well, except that the volunteer groups never got their due. Not then, not now. Their successes?and they were huge successes?the other side took credit for, and the other side?s failure?and they were huge failures?it blamed them for.

In November last year, after I wrote a couple of columns criticizing the Liberal Party for making Noynoy appear just like another trapo, warning that his numbers could tumble from the tarnished image (which they did), someone called me up to tell me that that camp was asking ?Is Conrad still with us?? I replied: ?What the hell do they mean ?us???

In fact they were the ones who ought to have been asked: ?Are you still with Cory?? ?Are you still with Noynoy??

?Are you still with Edsa?? (To be concluded)