Jinggoy seeks US vacation with family

Deposed President Joseph Estrada’s son, who was detained with him for almost two years on charges of plunder, yesterday asked court permission to go to the United States for a month-long vacation with his family.

In a three-page petition, former San Juan mayor Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada assured the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court that he would not flee justice "considering his status in society."

He would like to spend a vacation in the United States with his family "now that he has the time and the opportunity to travel with his family" while his children are on summer vacation, Estrada said.

"This is an opportunity for them to learn the culture of another country," he said.

Estrada posted bail on March 7 after being detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City.

He wants to leave Manila "around middle or third week of this month" and stay in the United States "for a period of not more than one month." He will return just in time for the opening of school in June.

"Children are fast maturing and it would be just a matter of time before they are on their own," Estrada said, adding that "travel is part of a person’s educational enrichment and enlightenment."

The trip "is also a means to have a much-needed rest from the rigors of daily life, more so for one who had been under detention," he said.

On March 6, the Sandiganbayan court ruled that Jinggoy Estrada may post bail set at P500,000 after finding the evidence against him was "highly speculative" and did not show "conspiracy between the father and son, express or implied."

Three other people have been accused in the same plunder case, but two of them have fled the country.

The former president was ousted in January 2001 amid a military-backed popular uprising after being accused of corruption.

Joseph Estrada had served two and a half years of his six-year term, and was arrested in April that year with his son. He was replaced by then Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Prosecutors allege Estrada took bribes from illegal gambling rackets, embezzled state funds and profits from insider trading, among others.

They accuse him of amassing more than P4 billion ($75 million) during his 31-month rule.

Estrada insists he is innocent and that the trial is rigged. He maintains he has not resigned and claims he was illegally forced out of office.

The court allowed Jinggoy to post bail, saying prosecutors have yet to clearly establish that he was involved in his father’s alleged illegal gambling protection racket.

Former Ilocos Sur provincial governor Luis Singson, the prosecution’s main witness, alleged that the young Estrada received P2 million in bribes from illegal gambling bosses during his father’s presidency.

But the court said: "Absent any act or circumstances from which may be logically inferred by the existence of a factual cooperation of acts indicative of agreement, the theory of conspiracy appears to be a speculation and not a fact."