Estrada’s wish: Early end to trial

All President Estrada wants for Christmas is not his two front teeth, but his impeachment trial to end as soon as possible.

If he had his way, he would have preferred that he be acquitted before the Christmas holidays, but now that’s simply out of the question.

"My Christmas wish is that I hope this impeachment trial will be finished as soon as possible so that we will not prolong this feeling (of gloom), of course of our people, especially of families," the President said.

Despite the gloom brought to him and the First Family by the ongoing impeachment trial, Mr. Estrada said yesterday their family will have their traditional Christmas reunion this year.

While his Christmas wish for an end to the trial before the holiday break did not come true, the President said he hoped it would end within a month after it resumes in January.

Mr. Estrada admitted his disappointment celebrating Christmas this year with the impeachment trial at the Senate still looming over his head.

"We can’t avoid it. Obviously, it won’t end before Christmas, which I had hoped. But I hope it will be finished in less than a month after it resumes," he told reporters after leading the inauguration of the newly completed Don Emilio Ejercito Diagnostic Center at the AFP Medical Center in Quezon City which was named after his late father.

The President, however, reiterated that his Christmas wish will eventually be granted, though belatedly, with his acquittal by end-January.

As in his holiday celebrations in the past years, the President disclosed that he will be spending it with First Lady Luisa Ejercito along with their children and grandchildren, as well as the family matriarch, 96-year-old Doña Mary at the old family residence on Polk street in Greenhills, San Juan.

"I will celebrate it of course with my mother. We will spend it with family... especially with my mother and grandchildren," the President said.

After the Christmas holidays, Mr. Estrada announced that he will resume his provincial sorties in Mindanao "to personally monitor" the status of the various ongoing government projects and programs to transform the island into the country’s "food basket."

"It can’t be just all talk. We also have to work," the President said, adding he plans to drop by Subic in Zambales this week.