Erap seeks longer furlough

Detained President Joseph Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan yesterday to extend the separate 24-hour Christmas and New Year special passes the court granted him to visit his ailing 100-year-old mother.

Estrada argued his family needed the time to reunite for the holidays.

Former senator Rene Saguisag, lead counsel of Estrada, requested the justices of the special division to grant an extension of 14 more hours in order to visit his mother, Mary Marcelo-Ejercito, who remains confined at the San Juan Medical Center.

The anti-graft court earlier allowed the ousted leader to leave his 15-hectare resthouse in Tanay, Rizal — where he has been detained since July 2004 while undergoing a plunder trial — on 5 p.m. of Dec. 24 to 5 p.m. of Dec. 25 for Christmas and 5 p.m. of Dec. 31 to 5 p.m. of Jan. 1 for the New Year.

Estrada now wants the justices to modify and extend the passes they issued him to 7 a.m. of Dec. 26 for Christmas and until 7 a.m. of Jan. 2 for the New Year, or an extension of 14 hours each.

"It is on Christmas night when the Estradas gather for noche buena while Jan. 1 is the birth date of a sister and the family gathering is in the evening," Estrada said in his two-page urgent manifestation and motion.

"It is most respectfully importuned and beseeched that this pass be extended with the venue moved during the extension most respectfully sought to Polk street (in North Greenhills Subdivision, San Juan) which is larger than the home of his mother, to accommodate the huge Estrada clan," he suggested.

Estrada, 68, was allowed a 36-hour pass after he paid his last respects to his elder brother Antonio, who died recently, at 12 noon of Dec. 16. Afterward, Estrada proceeded to the San Juan Medical Center to visit his mother. He stayed there until 7 a.m. of Dec. 17.

Chief Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa Ignacio posed no objection to the former president’s request. — Delon Porcalla