Opposition posters bearing Erap’s image out soon – Pimentel

The Arroyo administration may have stopped opposition candidates from visiting former President Joseph Estrada, but this does not mean that the ousted president’s image will not appear in campaign posters for the May elections.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., one of the prominent leaders of the political opposition, said campaign posters bearing the image of Estrada raising the hand of members of the Grand Coalition will be out soon.

A few weeks before the official start of the campaign period, security forces assigned to Estrada’s Tanay rest house, where he is detained, prevented politicians from visiting the former president. They cited a reported threat on Estrada’s life as the reason for the tightened security and the ban on visitors at Tanay.

Even Senate President Manuel Villar Jr., who went to visit Estrada last Saturday, was not allowed to enter the Tanay rest house and had to settle for a brief chat with the former president on the street just outside the gate.

Several politicians have gone to the Tanay rest house to seek the endorsement of Estrada, who – even under detention – remains popular with the masses.

Pimentel said several of the photographs were taken before the security measures were in place, when Estrada was allowed visitors on a regular basis. He claimed that the photographs are real, not digitally altered.

"The hand-raising, we already did that, you just don’t know about it. We have our secret operations," Pimentel said.

He admitted that Estrada is a factor in the campaign of the Grand Coalition’s candidates and posters of them with the deposed president will play a major role.

"These will come out. We visited Erap sometime before (the ban), we suggested that already," Pimentel said.

He criticized the tightened security at the Tanay rest house as "political gimmickry."

"Is Villar going to assassinate Erap? That is not a credible explanation for refusing political leaders of the opposition from seeing Erap," Pimentel said.

Villar has made his peace with Estrada when he visited the ousted president on more than one occasion during the past year.

At the height of the impeachment proceedings against Estrada in 2000, Villar, then House speaker, single-handedly fast-tracked the transmittal of the complaint to the Senate for trial.

Villar is part of the Senate’s "Wednesday Group" along with Senators Ralph Recto, Joker Arroyo and Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan.

Villar and Pangilinan have been included in the Grand Coalition’s senatorial ticket.

According to Pimentel, Pangilinan appears to be the only one among the Grand Coalition’s 12 senatorial candidates who did not visit Estrada at Tanay.

Meanwhile, Estrada has asked the Sandiganbayan’s special division for permission to meet with his lawyers on the night of Feb. 17 at his mother’s house in Greenhills, San Juan.

In a one-page urgent supplemental motion, Estrada’s lawyer, former senator Rene Saguisag, said members of the defense panel have not heard from their client since the Philippine National Police (PNP) imposed the new restrictions at Estrada’s rest house.

Saguisag assured the court that Estrada’s meeting with his lawyers will not be political in nature. – With Mike Frialde