"These rallies are designed to create a semblance of disenchantment among the poor, although it consists only of a group of duly compensated demonstrators," said Heherson Alvarez, presidential adviser on overseas Filipino communities.
Weeks before Mrs. Arroyo gives her SONA, "this group of hired rallyists will stage a series of small movements made up of at most 5,000," he added.
Alvarez, also national spokesman for the pro-administration Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, said Estrada’s allies are bringing their "destabilization tactics" to the streets after their legal maneuvers to question the legitimacy of Mrs. Arroyo’s presidency before the Sandiganbayan failed.
"The series of actions by former President Estrada’s lawyers like petitioning the Sandiganbayan to reverse previous Supreme Court rulings on the legitimacy of the Arroyo government, and filing an impeachment complaint against the eight SC justices are just part of a bigger scheme to destabilize the Arroyo administration," he said.
Alvarez said a former Estrada Cabinet member, whom he did not identify, was orchestrating the "destabilization plot" as part of a "bigger scheme."
The former Cabinet secretary has been meeting with leaders of the pro-Estrada People’s Movement Against Poverty, La Liga Citizen’s Movement for Renewal and Reform, and a host of political allies of the deposed president, he added.
Last Wednesday, the Sandiganbayan’s special division dismissed for "lack of merit" a motion of Estrada seeking to clear him of plunder charges, arguing that he was illegally ousted from the presidency by a military-backed civilian uprising on Jan. 20, 2001.
In an 11-page decision, the anti-graft court said it did not have the "authority to go behind a final decision of the Supreme Court and question the motives/biases of the justices," who ruled that Mrs. Arroyo had legitimately succeeded to the presidency.
The special division said it had limited powers over the Supreme Court and that "any move to invalidate a final and executory decision of the highest court of the land would be rank absurdity."
The Supreme Court’s rulings "are not legally the work of the individual justices," but the product of the Supreme Court "acting as a collegiate body."
Estrada faces the death penalty if convicted of charges of plunder, illegal use of alias, and perjury. — Sammy Santos