MANILA, Philippines?The Charter change (Cha-cha) express train was derailed on Friday after running head-on against the most broadly based civil society mass protest in Makati City since the declaration of a national emergency by President Macapagal-Arroyo in 2006.

The 10,000 crowd that packed the intersection of Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas did not come up to the mammoth scale of the people power demonstrations at Edsa that deposed President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001.

But the explosion of rage against Cha-cha expressed in the Makati multisectoral rally was sufficiently powerful to force the Arroyo administration to abandon the constitutional revision drive.

The rally was spearheaded by a coalition of forces associated with the Roman Catholic Church, which also provided the mass backbone of the two people power movements.

House Majority Leader Arthur Defensor declared on Saturday that the House of Representatives had abandoned its plan to unilaterally convene a constituent assembly (Con-ass) to consider amendments to the 1987 Constitution without the participation of the Senate.

In an effort to save face, Defensor explained the back-off, saying that any plan to unilaterally convene a Con-ass was bound to fail after all 23 senators had closed ranks, including administration allies, to pass a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that any House move to rewrite the Constitution would be ?unconstitutional.?

Defensor, a member of the ruling Lakas-CMD that controls the House, said that a draft resolution initiated by Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Villafuerte, president of Ms Arroyo?s Kampi party, was just a ?scrap of paper? because of the Senate?s resolution.

Villafuerte has not yet filed the resolution, although administration allies in the House are campaigning to collect the signatures of at least 197 of the 230 House members.

Strongest message yet

The Senate resolution was initiated by Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who said it sent ?the strongest message yet that the Senate stands united against the allies of the president in the Lower House to subvert the Constitution for dubious ends,? i.e., extend the term of the President beyond 2010.

The resolution said: ?Any attempt by the House to unilaterally propose amendments to, or revision of, the Constitution without approval by three-fourths of the Senate voting separately is unconstitutional.?

?The composition of the Senate will not allow this to happen,? Pangilinan said. The resolution is an ?institutional response and binds all signatories to uphold and defend the constitutional process.?

The Senate measure and Villafuerte?s draft resolution put both chambers on a collision course. The Senate resolution has created tensions in the new Senate majority while it threatens to wreck the drive of pro-Arroyo lawmakers for the Con-ass that bypasses the Senate.

Sign of intense outrage

Although the new Senate president, Juan Ponce Enrile, is perceived as a staunch administration ally, the resolution finds him breaking ranks with Ms Arroyo, who favors constitutional change.

A breach by Enrile would put his Senate presidency at risk from a number of senators who oppose Con-ass and who are likely to depose him any time given the opportunity.

While Enrile opposes the Con-ass mode, he is hostile to huge protests against Cha-cha. He said there was no need for the street protests because any move to amend the Constitution at this point was an ?almost impossible dream.?

He said the numbers in the Senate ?are not there to enable us to propose any amendments to the Constitution.?

Enrile has a deep-seated antagonism to people power, which he regards until now as having robbed the military mutiny he staged of the credit of overthrowing the Marcos dictatorship.

He is not impressed with the Makati rally on Friday, and neither is Ms Arroyo.

Despite their perceptions dismissing the rally turnout as not as threatening as the mass protests during Edsa I and II, there were ample signs on the ground that the level of outrage against constitutional change has escalated and the groups now coalesced in the protest movement have increased.

They now embrace not only the Church-associated groups, but also leftist organizations, the major religious organizations, El Shaddai charismatic movement, big business leaders, leaders of opposition parties, senators aspiring for the presidency?all of whom joined the rally. These were the main components of Edsa I and II.

Church outrage

The Catholic hierarchy has been so outraged by the stepped-up drive by the administration to revise the Constitution to open the way for the extension of the President?s hold on power beyond 2010.

The opinion surveys show widespread revulsion at the thought of an extended Arroyo presidency.

Even the moderate archbishop of Manila, Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, raised his voice in protest. ?Let?s stop all this foolishness,? he said on the eve of the rally, voicing the sentiments of the Catholic Bishops? Conference of the Philippines condemning the Con-ass congressional fast-track.

At no time since 2004 have public opinion surveys shown a decisive shift toward opposition to Cha-cha. A recent Social Weather Stations survey shows that 64 percent of voters rejected Cha-cha at this time.

While the numbers at the rally were not of the scale that would intimidate the administration from pushing its constitutional revision project, there are warnings that the demonstrations represent the head winds of a storm that is ready to break out if the forces behind Cha-cha ignore them.

Defensor may be listening to these warnings when he announced the abandonment of the overdrive for Con-ass without Senate participation.

Senate institutional opposition to Con-ass is the less important reason for the abandonment.

More important is the fury of an outraged public opinion building up behind the growing momentum of protests against Cha-cha being used as a weapon to smuggle Ms Arroyo into an extended term without electoral mandate.