Impeachment prosecutors do well in polls

If movie stars lost their magic in Monday’s elections, the principal actors in the Estrada impeachment telenovela appeared to have shone in the first elections since the aborted trial.

The big names in the prosecution panel are headed for victory. That Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo, the prosecution’s superstar, and former Speaker Manuel Villar Jr. would win in the senatorial race seems to be a foregone conclusion.

The two congressmen, who are seeking Senate seats under the ruling People Power Coalition, are doing well in the unofficial count of the National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel).

As for Villar, he made history when, on Nov. 13, he railroaded the transmittal to the Senate of the impeachment charges against Estrada.

The manager of the panel that prosecuted Estrada, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., who was then minority leader, is winning the mayoral race in Quezon City.

Other prosecutors, including re-electionist Representatives Oscar Rodriguez of Pampanga, Oscar Moreno of Misamis Oriental and Antonio Nachura of Western Samar, also appear headed for victory.

It was the prosecution team of Arroyo and Moreno that exposed Estrada’s P3.23-billion "Jose Velarde" account in Equitable-PCI Bank.

The former president and his cronies reportedly did all they could to prevent those who prosecuted him from emerging victorious in the polls.

In the case of Arroyo, he merited special mention from Estrada in several rallies of the opposition coalition Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Puwersa ng Masa, which the disgraced leader heads.

In Quezon City, an Estrada crony involved in a stock market fraud and several nightclub owner-friends of the former president allegedly funded the campaign of Belmonte’s closest rival.

The nightclub owners are among cronies suspected of having bankrolled the Labor Day attack on Malacañang by thousands of pro-Estrada protesters.