Anwar and Erap

Malaysia’s former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim could only hold in awe and with equal envy his buddy, former President Joseph Estrada. This was after Anwar learned that no less than the Supreme Court of the Philippines had dismissed a petition to disqualify him from running in the May 2010 presidential elections.

It reminded Anwar of his telephone conversations with Estrada in the past when he first came to Manila after his release from prison in Kuala Lumpur. This was after the Supreme Court of Malaysia overturned Anwar’s sodomy conviction in 2004. At that time, Estrada was still under detention in his rest house in Tanay, Rizal while undergoing plunder trial at the Sandiganbayan.

“Mr.President, I’m out, you’re in,” Anwar recalled with amusement his wisecrack to Estrada over the phone when he first came to Manila after his release from prison.

The friendship of Estrada and Anwar started way back in 1993 while both of them were still the No.2 man in their respective governments. Estrada was then vice president while Anwar was his counterpart in Malaysia as deputy of then Prime Minister Mohammad Mahathir. Amid the growing popularity in the political front of his deputy prime minister, Mahathir fired Anwar and charged him of corruption and sodomy in September, 1998.

So when Estrada became President in 1998, he showed he is a friend in fair and bad weather for Anwar when the latter was subsequently incarcerated. Estrada publicly declared support for the global call for the Malaysian leadership to respect the human rights of Anwar who was placed in solitary incarceration.

Estrada’s vocal support for Anwar caused a lot of headaches for his Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Domingo Siazon Jr. who tried to prevent strain in RP-Malaysia relations. The growing tension in the bilateral ties of the two countries came to head when Estrada did the unthinkable, while attending the annual leaders’ summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) hosted by Mahathir in Kuala Lumpur. I covered that event while still pounding the presidential beat as a reporter.

He ignored Siazon’s advice. He clandestinely met Anwar’s wife Wan Azizah and their daughter in his presidential suite at the last day of the Asean summit. But the meeting was no secret at all for Malaysia’s national security agency spy agents and reported the matter immediately to Mahathir even before the Philippine media delegation could break the news in Manila. To make matters worse for the DFA Secretary, Anwar’s daughter was subsequently received as Estrada’s guest at Malacañang Palace.

“Mahathir really got angry with me,” Estrada recalled. But those gestures uplifted the spirit of the detained Anwar who holds Estrada in highest esteem for giving him the hope to live for during those trying times of his life. “I consider him a great family friend and a brother. He was there when I was in power. He was there when we’re in great difficulties. He’s a great friend,” Anwar said of Estrada.

“From the time I knew him (Estrada), his passion is with the masses. And his passion for the poor are for real and coming straight from the heart, very genuine and it speaks of the character and conviction of the man,” Anwar stressed.

Anwar and the former President reminisced their friendship through the years over a late breakfast at the Manila Polo Club on Saturday. The former President hosted it for Anwar before the latter flew back to Kuala Lumpur where he is facing tomorrow the court for yet another sodomy case filed against him. He came to Manila to speak about democracy at the University of the Philippines College of Law held on Friday.

A leading opposition in Malaysia, Anwar is called as the “voice of democracy” in his country. The last time Anwar was in Manila was in June 2008 when Estrada hosted a dinner for Anwar and his wife and daughter at his Polk residence in Greenhills, San Juan City. Also invited by Estrada to the dinner was then ailing former President Corazon Aquino and her son, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. A day before he met with Estrada, Anwar revealed that Noynoy visited him at his hotel. The Aquinos are likewise his family friends, Anwar cited.

While his sodomy conviction was overturned, Anwar’s conviction on corruption, however, barred him from holding public office until April 2008. He is the acknowledged de facto leader of his own group called Keadilan, the People’s Justice Party which is now a leading opposition party in Malaysia. The party is headed by his wife, Wan Azizah.

In the March 2008 elections in the Malaysian Parliament, Anwar’s charismatic leadership helped his wife’s party gain about 88 seats out of about 222 seats in their legislative body. Thus, his troubles started anew in August that year. His 23-year old former aide complained that he was forced to have sex with Anwar at an apartment in Kuala Lumpur.

“This might be my final time that I may be here to meet with my friends because I’m facing trial in court again this Tuesday on a trumped-up case,” Anwar rued. As in the first sodomy case he hurdled in which Anwar was detained for six years, Estrada deplored this newest sodomy case against his Malaysian buddy as another “politically-motivated” persecution. Anwar, 62, claimed the filing of the case against him was purportedly influenced by his political foes in Malaysia.

He noted that Anwar’s travails in his political career run parallel to his. “He (Anwar) is so popular with the masses while the rich and the elitists in Malaysia, I heard, persecute him, in trying to stop his comeback (in office),” Estrada said.

Like Anwar, Estrada is now on his own comeback bid after his term was rudely cut short by the EDSA-2 in January 2001. The Estrada camp invoked the executive pardon granted to him by President Arroyo in October 2007 — after his plunder conviction a month earlier that same year — had restored all his political rights, including the right to vote and to be voted upon.

Although the High Court had dismissed the petition to disqualify him as a presidential candidate, his political nemesis vowed it ain’t over yet and they would stop him in his track back to Malacañang. They can try but Estrada is also determined to get back to the presidency.