In the war of nerves, GMA-JDV and their cohorts blinked.

No, the Holy Spirit did not descend on them when they changed their minds on the Con-Ass controversy. They just didn't have a choice.

If they did not shift to tango last Saturday, they unwittingly would have created a potential EDSA IV, a social volcano erupting with this great destabilizer called the Con-Ass. In one stroke, it galvanized the Opposition into one (what one leader couldn't do) and created a political tsunami that would have swept GMA's allies into the shores of ignominy.

Consider that the Con-Ass had become a lonely battle.

This brazen political taunting of the intelligence of people in this Age of Reason - unwittingly changed the tide of history and has put the nation on a political crossroad, once again.

Different churches - from the Catholic CBCP, the Catholic Metropolitan See, Mike Velarde's passionate El Shaddai, The Jesus is Lord Movement and the mainstream Protestant churches were to turn December 15 into the government's "Good Friday" preceding Christmas in December. A massive rally - a size not seen in recent years would have turned Manila into an angry sea of humanity.

The 1.3 million Kilusang Magbubukid, the militant groups and progressive business groups like the Makati business Club and the FINEX were one in condemning Con-Ass to hell. In fact, 60% of Filipinos didn't believe in Charter Change, much less an illegal Con-Ass to Manipulate a pet peeve. The Philippine Senate, save one, threw the invitation for them to dignify this shameless act of legislation - straight to the waste can where it belonged. The only dissenting senator is one who was literally frothing in the mouth, "who wanted to bite people" in her ballistic anger - and thus represented by her childish antics, the kind of company the Con-Ass had.

And there is the huge remnants of political Opposition belonging to the FPJ and Erap sympathizer who are all smarting from the alleged usurpation of their idols' presidential powers from the crown pretender from Pampanga, as they reasoned. Newly appointed justice Reynato Puno himself, an independent thinker and rabid constitutionalist, gave a preview of his own thinking of the Con-Ass with subtle but telling blows suggesting that "I am not in the pocket of Malacañang - I am my own man who became Chief Justice because I deserve it."

Non-lawyers we may be, but we read our Constitution and understand our English to know that Bicameral means there are two houses who vote on anything, separately - including the change of names of streets like the C-5 to Carlos P. Garcia Avenue. Why should the Lower House, in one stroke of political adventurism, change a bicameral Congress into a Unicameral Parliament by acting on its own with Con-Ass?

The hubris of railroading two impeachment cases versus the President probably wrongly emboldened the Palace allies that they can get away with murder on the Con-Ass. Although the Supreme Court had spanked and repudiated them on fascistic decrees governing dissent and the People's Initiative - they psyched themselves up with a wave of false confidence and braggadocio that became more pungent by the day that they stayed in power.

We wish we could muster kinder words. But the nation watched in shock and puked in disbelief how the Lower House railroaded - via the tyranny of numbers - House Resolution No. 197 creating a Constituent Assembly, without the Senate.

The nation knows that many of them are in a quid-pro-quo arrangement with the Palace - political sycophancy for economic largesse - who will dance the minuet in this age of rock, if told to do so by the Palace barker.

But everything has its limits. People have seen the charade.

There is a time for reckoning and that time has arrived, unfazed by the blitz of the bullet Cha-Cha train. The militant groups are aghast that even after the Courts had whipped the Palace in line for its despotic Marcosian colors, it still challenged the gods to do their wish or forever hold their peace. The Con-Ass initiative is an example.

The nation's political temperature has risen to a boil and the people realize that they did not fight a dictator only to be oppressed by a similar one but disguised as a democrat. For the first time since GMA held office, the people now need the least agitation to bring them back to the streets. It is a price to pay for political recklessness, unbridled ambition of some and unmitigated greed of many.

In the past, the Palace players who had shunted the Constitutional Convention route because the country did not have the luxury of time and was an expensive exercise - are now singing a different tune. It was a surprise for that to come from people who are known to produce fewer laws in the longest time and are known voracious eaters of (pork) barrel.

The Catholic Church in her "Watch and Pray. Magmalasakit Para sa Bayan" - sounded not just a call to arms in defense of country but had called the faithful to a religious rite like Jesus said when he pleaded with his sleepy disciples to keep wake with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. The tolling of bells had started - one does not begin to wonder for whom the bells were tolling.

Like a scalpel driven into the chest, the words of the Church on the Con-Ass were damning if not prophetic: "There are no more morals, no more rules. The rule is what suits the administration."

Meantime, if Manila would have erupted in righteous indignation Friday, the 15th - that would have stained whatever gains the once scheduled ASEAN Summit Meet in Cebu two days after on the 17th. The political pressure cooker was too much for the Palace to bear.

The Palace allies blinked - and as if on cue from the baton leader - are now singing Constitutional Convention route together with the May 2007 polls.

That is not listening to the people's wish - for the decibels coming from them would have shattered their eardrums long time ago. That is practical expediency to avoid political extinction. That is not enlightened leadership but political brinkmanship.

There is no truth in the bullshit that some Church leaders cut a deal with GMA for her to junk the Con-Ass in exchange for political peace enough for her to last through 2010. There was no need for GMA to junk the Con-Ass for the people had already rejected overwhelmingly this shameless piece of thrash called Con-Ass. She cannot be negotiating from that position of strength.

If indeed the Con-Ass was just a trial balloon - to feel the pulse of the nation, the political cost was far too high.

We are now converted into a nation of paranoids - seeing black everywhere and needing so little to cross the line. It is dangerous times.