Estrada cries persecution

Jailed former President Joseph Estrada slammed yesterday the Sandiganba-yan for allegedly persecuting him instead of conducting a fair trial of the corruption charges filed against him by the government.

In a strongly worded two-page letter addressed to the anti-graft court’s special division, Estrada insisted that he was still the legally elected president.

"You say that you are treating me fairly. I say you have done nothing but persecute me. One of you who has an eye in the Supreme Court wants to place me in the Quezon City Jail, forgetting that I am legally the President of the Republic of the Philippines who deserves dignity and respect," he said.

Estrada asked the special division members headed by Justice Minita Nazario to "jail me and allow my enemies to besmirch my reputation and make a circus out of the proceedings, then deny me my rights and the same privilege by gagging me."

The defiant fallen leader rejected anew court-appointed lawyers for him. "At the outset, I do not wish to dignify any act which is only intended to create a semblance of legality to the farcical proceedings in your court. For this reason, I am categorically rejecting any and all court-appointed lawyers to put up a defense for me," he said.

Estrada, who dismissed last week his battery of lawyers led by former Sen. Rene Saguisag, also assailed a plan by the court as proposed by Ombudsman Aniano Desierto to allow live coverage of his trial on the capital offense of plunder.

He charged that by having live media coverage, the magistrates were not interested in protecting his rights, "but would only want that your decisions be cheered by those who have already prejudged me."

"Your actions betray your true intentions to convict me at all costs. But I do not blame you. You must show (that) the justice system works, and what better way to prove it than by making me as an example that crime does not pay — even without admissible evidence," Estrada said.

He warned that with television networks covering the event, the justices might simply play to the cameras at his expense.

"The possibility that parallel trials before the bar of justice and the bar of public opinion may jeopardize, or even prevent, the just determination of the cases can be minimized," Estrada added.

He also accused Justices Nazario, Edilberto Sandoval and Teresita de Castro of depriving his former counsels of a "fighting chance" by junking their opposition to the plan to hold three hearings a week.

The former president scolded the magistrates for allegedly entertaining a motion by the prosecution to cite him for contempt in connection with sub judice and derogatory statements he had issued, while at the same time giving special treatment to members of the prosecution panel.

He chided the justices for allowing Ombudsman Aniano Desierto to make public statements saying the case of illegal use of alias against him was already "60 percent closed."

Meanwhile, Estrada’s wife Sen. Luisa Ejercito said Justice Secretary Hernando Perez "missed the point" when he suggested that her husband be allowed to name his new lawyers.

In a statement, Estrada said Perez’s proposal merely showed that the government has been running out of options to convince her husband to go back to the courtroom.

"Secretary Perez should get real. How can he suggest that President Estrada name the lawyers he wants when my husband already declared he has lost his trust in the judiciary and would rather leave his fate to God and the Filipino people? The courts have already prejudged him guilty," the statement said.

Ejercito viewed as a ploy Perez’s suggestion to the former leader to plead guilty on the charges to get a lighter penalty, saying it was meant as a coverup to the weakness of the cases leveled against her husband.

She also noted that prosecution witnesses have failed to establish that her husband committed illegal acts.

In another development, Malacañang reiterated that it is up to the Sandiganbayan to decide whether or not to allow Estrada to go to the United States to seek medical attention for his ailing knees.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said President Arroyo would not be swayed even by congressional leaders to intervene in the court proceedings by allowing Estrada to go abroad. — With Marichu Villanueva