SC gives Erap more time to answer DQ raps

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) has given deposed former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada more time to answer the disqualification case filed against him by defeated re-electionist mayor Alfredo Lim.

In a regular session yesterday, SC justices granted the motion filed by Estrada seeking a 30-day extension or until Aug. 6 to file a comment on the intervention filed by Lim last June 7 in the petition of lawyer Alicia Risos-Vidal last May.

This means the high court will not resolve the issue on whether or not Estrada was qualified to run and win in the polls last May 13, considering his conviction for plunder by the Sandiganbayan in September 2007, until after a month.

Estrada’s lawyer, George Erwin Garcia, last week sought the extension, saying he is handling too many cases and that he needed more time to properly answer Lim’s pleading.

Their camp was initially given a non-extendible period of 10 days from receipt of notice to comply the high court’s order.

Estrada assumed Manila’s top post last June 30 and started his three-year term in the absence of any halt order from the high tribunal.

The SC in 2009 had dismissed a similar disqualification case against Estrada when he again ran for president in 2010. The petition, the high court had ruled, was premature since the Commission on Elections (Comelec) did not rule on the matter then.

In this new case, however, the Comelec had dismissed Vidal’s petition and declared Estrada as qualified to run for mayor.

Vidal insisted that Estrada’s conviction for plunder and being sentenced to life imprisonment had rendered him disqualified to run for public office,  but the poll body ruled that Estrada’s “right to seek public office has been effectively restored by the pardon vested upon him by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.”