Pardoned former President Joseph Estrada will continue on Friday his “Lakbay Pasasalamat” in Mindoro.
In a telephone interview, Estrada said he will particularly visit the areas of Calapan and Pola Town in Mindanao where he won by a landslide during the 1998 president elections.
“I love the people of Mindoro because they are instrumental in my landslide victory in the presidential elections in 1998. They also voted for my wife, Dr. Loi and my son Jinggoy when they ran for the Senatorial race,” Estrada said.
Estrada said his “Lakbay Pasasalamat” is not intended for his impending presidential candidacy in 2010.
“What’s on my mind is to thank them for their unconditional support to me, even when I was still incarcerated for six years and six months. I cannot repay the poor Filipino people who helped achieved my goals when I was still an actor and until I became mayor of San Juan, a Senator, vice president and president with the highest vote ever garnered by a presidential candidate in the history of the Philippines,” Estrada said.
Estrada was convicted by the Sandiganbayan Special Division in September last year, but he was eventually pardoned by President Arroyo in October of the same year.
Since his release from his detention in his rest house in Tanay, Rizal, Estrada started his “Lakbay Pasasalamat” to his supporters in Vitas, Tondo, Parola, Smokey Mountain, the Carabao Center in Nueva Ecija, from Binan to Pagsanjan in Laguna, Muntinlupa; Payatas and North Triangle in Quezon City; Iloilo and Camarines Sur in the Bicol region.