Explain Estrada’s ouster, Supreme Court asked

Please explain...

A lawyer identified with the Marcoses and deposed President Joseph Estrada asked the Supreme Court yesterday to explain the legality of its unanimous decision to allow Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. to swear in President Arroyo last Jan. 20.

Lawyer Oliver Lozano urged the High Court to outline the legal bases for its resolution, effectively challenging the constitutional basis of Mrs. Arroyo’s presidency which was inaugurated on Jan. 20.

Even though he was forced to leave the presidential palace after the Supreme Court declared his post vacant, "Estrada has not resigned. Nobody can produce his resignation letter stating that he has resigned for there is none," the petition read.

With the Lozano petition, there are now four petitions in the High Court regarding the constitutionality of the Arroyo presidency.

The three others were filed by lawyers Jaime Soriano and Eduardo Inlayo as well as the Concerned Citizens for Effective and Responsible Government, all of which are believed to be pro-Arroyo.

Lawyer Dan Natividad, who submitted the Lozano petition, said they expect the SC to reply within 24 hours to the "request for clarification" because "we are now supporting an unconstitutional president."

"Leaving the palace is not the equivalent of resigning. We are now supporting an unconstitutional president," said Natividad, stressing that they need to receive and study the SC legal opinion to decide whether to launch a legal battle.

The SC is expected to take up the four petitions in today’s en banc session.

The Arroyo administration had earlier dismissed Estrada’s lingering claims to the presidency.

The government’s position was laid in a Department of Justice (DOJ) legal opinion that will be binding unless overturned by the Supreme Court, according to Justice Secretary Hernando Perez.

"There is no basis for President Estrada to recover the presidency. He has abandoned his office. He said his farewells. As far as the law is concerned, the former president is a former president," Perez said.

Perez, a former ranking congressman and law professor, said that although Estrada never used the word "resign," his press statement of Jan. 20 was in effect a resignation.

The tenor of the letter was unmistakably that of a resignation as reflected in the phrases the disgraced president used, Perez had said when he issued his first legal opinion Last Jan. 24..

In a four-page opinion, Perez said the phrases "leave the Palace" and the "seat of the presidency" showed that Estrada was consciously abandoning his office.

Estrada even gave a valedictory by saying he was thankful for the "opportunities given to him" and that he will not "shirk from future challenges that may come ahead," Perez wrote.

Estrada even said he was leaving his office so that a healing process in the country could begin, he added.

"His press statement clearly evinced his intention to relinquish the presidency and such intention was coupled with the actual relinquishment of the office on that same date," he said.

The DOJ chief dismissed as "obviously an afterthought," the antedated letter of Estrada to Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. that Arroyo was only an "acting President."

"In his press statement, which was duly signed by him, he did say that he wants the healing process to begin for which reason he was leaving the presidency," he said.

"Once he had resigned, he cannot recover the same anymore. So even if, as an afterthought, he declared that he was only on leave, that will not have no effect whatsoever," Perez added.

"Based on the foregoing, there is no question that Estrada had resigned his position thereby paving the way for the valid assumption by Arroyo," he said.

The DOJ chief likewise made mention of the fact that Estrada was in effect overthrown by a popular upheaval, called People Power II, which created a vacancy in the Office of the President.

"People Power is also predicated on the time-honored principle of salus populi est suprema lex (the welfare of the people is the supreme law)," Perez said in his legal opinion.

More importantly, the international community recognizes the government of the newly-installed President and their diplomatic representatives were even present at her inauguration, Perez added.

Estrada had earlier claimed that he may challenge the legal basis of Mrs. Arroyo’s succession to office and wrote a letter to Pimentel saying Estrada was just "on leave."

The one-paragraph letter, dated Jan. 20, 2001, was written on the same day Estrada was forced to leave Malacañang as angry demonstrators neared the Palace.

"By virtue of the provisions of Section 11, Article VII of the Constitution, I am hereby transmitting this declaration that I am unable to exercise the powers and duties of my office. By operation of the law and the Constitution, the Vice President shall be acting President," Mr. Estrada said in the letter.

Part of Article VII, Section 11 of the Constitution reads:

"Sec. 11 Whenever the President transmits to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President."

Pimentel said Estrada’s letter implied that the ousted former president may reclaim the office when he is again "able" to perform presidential functions.

The Senate president, however, said Mrs. Arroyo can invoke the Jan. 20 unanimous decision of the Supreme Court declaring the presidency vacant and installing her as President.

The SC declared Estrada incapable of performing his functions on Jan. 20 after key members of his Cabinet and the military and police establishment withdrew their support.

The High Court’s declaration allowed then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to take her oath as the country’s 14th president.

Mrs. Arroyo’s government has been recognized by several countries, including the United States, and the United Nations.

Mrs. Arroyo’s succession has also been recognized by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"As far as we are concerned, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the President. In fact, no less than the Chief Justice administered the oath to her as the constitutional successor," said Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., dismissing suggestions that Estrada’s letter would trigger a constitutional crisis.