I had just submitted my article last week, the one that ended with a question asking if the city officials in charge of traffic had the balls to do their job properly, when the news of the newest Sonny Trillanes caper had broken out. By the time the sorry excuse for a coup attempt had been resolved a few hours later, I was left wishing that I had saved the commentary on men and their balls for the pathetic standoff.

How did Trillanes expect to get the sympathy and support of the public if he can be cowed by a simple shock and awe operation? A little teargas, an APC barging into the doors of the hotel and strafing the lobby with gunfire, and the guy who gave us the impression that he was willing to die for his cause suddenly decides to surrender, giving the lame excuse that he was doing it for the safety of the media people. Perhaps, this clown who was elected into the Senate of this country may have not known what he was getting into when he barged into the Manila Peninsula, but the media people who resolutely stayed behind after the deadline certainly knew what they were getting into, so I couldn't help but get the impression that he was making “their safety” the convenient excuse for giving up because he almost pissed in his pants after the APC daintily parked itself in a cloud of teargas beside the giant Christmas tree of the Manila Peninsula's grand lobby.

If Sen. Trillanes had stuck with his guns and decided to make a decent last stand in spite of being severely outnumbered and outgunned, he would have gained a modicum of respect instead of being turned into the laughingstock of the country. Sure, what he did was wrong as wrong can get, from the legalities to the logistics and execution itself, but since he was already there, he should have seen it to the end. I don't know what that end could have been but his decision to surrender so soon made him look more cowardly than determined.

As foolish the latest Trillanes caper may have been, I cannot help but sympathize with his cause. Because despite the glowing economic figures being harped by this administration, they cannot gloss over the fact that the people who are currently in power have a lot to answer for. Corruption scandals have been popping up left and right and yet there has been no genuine attempt from this administration to address these issues head on. All we have seen so far are cover-ups, stonewalling, the shameless exploitation of legal loopholes, and half-baked investigations that have no teeth. The thing that rankles me is these people in power are simply sitting pretty while enriching themselves as they continue to stay in power, unafraid of investigation, prosecution, or impeachment because the existing system allows them to.

That feeling of helplessness and despair may have driven Sen. Trillanes and his gang to do what they did that fateful Thursday. The stupidity of their actions, the total lack of a plan and any kind of support, and their embarrassingly funny if it hadn't been so serious failure do not make those feelings go away. Most educated and sane Filipinos do not want another messy revolution to screw up all the progress this country has made, but even the most educated and the most sensible and tolerant people in the universe have a breaking point. Unless something changes in the way this government is run with regards to blatant corruption and cronyism, one day may come before 2010 when someone with bigger balls and a better plan may just pull off what Trillanes failed to do.