Estrada bathes in religious health spa

The "spiritual healing" was for free, but security preparations cost the government P1 million.

Jailed former President Joseph Estrada underwent yesterday a five-hour spiritual healing process ostensibly to cure him of an ailing knee.

The 65-year-old fallen leader, who has admitted he was not particularly religious, submitted himself to the ritual involving prayers and a bath of what was largely considered a miraculous spring water.

Estrada acknowledged that his pilgrimage to the Mother Ignacia Healing Center in Barangay Bagumbong in Caloocan City cost the government a lot of money because of the heavy police escort backed by a helicopter.

"But I really have no choice because they wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to me," he said.

A massive security convoy composed of some 1,000 policemen and soldiers, including members of the elite Presidential Security Group and the Special Weapons and Tactics, escorted Estrada’s van during the 30-minute trip from the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City to the healing center where a nun, Sister Gloria Ross, performed the healing rites.

Estrada had to secure court permission for a day-long furlough from detention at the VMMC after the anti-graft Sandiganbayan which was trying him for corruption charges refused to let him leave for the United States for treatment of his gout and eye problems.

"Since the court did not allow me to have surgery in the US, I am hoping that Sister Glo of Mother Ignacia could make a miracle happen," Estrada said.

The elderly nun from the Religious of the Virgin Mary order, collected water from the spring and poured it over Estrada’s head, knees and hands. She used a wireless microphone to lead prayers inside the compound, surrounded by bamboo trees and a concrete fence topped by barbed wire.

Reporters, television crew, kibitzers and supporters of the former president were kept at bay by the security escorts. – With Jerry Botial