Erap five years after his fall from power: " My greatest regret is not being able to finish my term"

Five years after he was forced to leave Malacañang at the end of the so-called EDSA-2 People Power Revolution on January 20, 2001, former President Joseph "Erap" Estrada still regrets this bitter part of the country’s history. This STARweek learned when we sought out the former president to get his thoughts and sentiments.

Mr. Estrada is emphatic in saying he has no regrets over any of the things he did in office from June 30,1998 until he dramatically left Malacañang Palace that fateful day.

Estrada’s then Vice President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was sworn into office by Supreme Court chief justice Hilario Davide Jr. and served out the remainder of Estrada’s six-year term which ended in 2004.

Estrada’s fate was sealed when his former Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado, with then Armed Forces chief of staff Gen.Angelo Reyes and the rest of the military and police top brass, joined the rest of the anti-Estrada leaders headed by former Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos, and the late Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin.

With his head up, dressed in jeans and a beige jacket, Estrada left the Premier Guesthouse, the two-storey building that sits across the Palace, the same Guesthouse which he renovated and used as his official residence and office during the two and a half years he occupied the country’s highest office, and which drew the first wave of criticisms barely a few months in power.

Surrounded by members of the First Family led by former First Lady and now Sen. Dra.Luisa "Loi" Ejercito, the deposed President was led out of the Palace by members of the elite Presidential Security Group (PSG) to the waiting presidential boat that took them across the Pasig River.

I was among the Palace reporters who waited outside the Guesthouse for Estrada’s last ambush interview with us, but we never got the chance to speak to Estrada, as he appeared glassy-eyed and pre-occupied with suppressed emotions.

Gen. Reyes, who subsequently became Defense and now Interior and Local Government Secretary of Mrs.Arroyo, made sure no harm would befall Estrada, who just a month earlier had stood as sponsor at the wedding of the general’s namesake son, as the family left the Palace and motored to their residence on Polk Street in Greenhills, San Juan.

Emissaries of President Arroyo led by former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez sought out Estrada with an offer for him to leave the country. Estrada rejected the "back-door exit" offer as he insisted on his innocence of all the accusations of corruption against him. When Perez came back to Estrada, the offer was amended to include a warning that if he again rejects the offer, he would be hailed to court on plunder charges, a non-bailable offense and one of the heinous crimes punishable by death. He is still undergoing trial at the Sandiganbayan since plunder and other graft charges were filed against him in April 2001.

"Flight is guilt. That’s why I never left the country because I’m not guilty and I will face all these trumped up charges," Estrada declared.

The former President could have remained abroad when the anti-graft court granted him a medical furlough in December 2003 to undergo knee replacement surgery in Hong Kong. True to his word, Estrada returned to his Tanay detention facility after his successful surgery.

Estrada has been under court restrictions against any private visitors or media interviews at his sprawling 16-hectare rest house in Tanay, Rizal where he has been detained since late 2003. On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his leaving office, I e-mailed a brief questionaire to him, and he graciously sent back his answers.

What is your greatest regret?

"My greatest regret is not being able to finish my term, not being able to implement my pro-poor projects, and not being able to sustain the success of my peace and order program to build upon the gains we made in the anti-crime campaign," Estrada wrote back.

"We had already eliminated the kidnap-for-ransom menace and ‘kotong’ cops and we were already directing our efforts against the communist and Muslim rebels when the (anti-Estrada) rallies started," Estrada recalled with bitterness, referring to the various protest rallies led by the so-called "civil society" groups while impeachment proceedings against him were taking place at the Senate.

Estrada particularly recalled the words of the brilliant lady jurist, the late Supreme Court associate justice Cecilia Munoz-Palma whose voice to uphold the rule of law was drowned out by the crowds of EDSA-2.

"The 1987 Constitution suffered. This happened when the on-going impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada was unceremoniously disrupted and discontinued and the issues on hand were brought to the parliament of the streets. The Rule of Law was set aside and the Rule of Force prevailed," the late justice opined. She had chaired the Constitutional Commission that drafted the 1987 Constitution.

Justice Munoz-Palma, who died last January 2, was among the first government officials that Estrada appointed to head the Philippine Charity Sweepstake Office.

Who remains loyal to you?

Estrada cited that he had appointed not only the best and the brightest but also men and women of integrity and honesty and put them in his Cabinet and other key government positions. Except for the defection of Mercado (also Estrada’s wedding godson) to the EDSA-2 group, the former President insisted he had the most loyal Cabinet members, more loyal, he points out, than Mrs.Arroyo who was betrayed by her "Hyatt 10" Cabinet officials who announced their irrevocable resignation and withdrawal of support from Mrs.Arroyo at the Hyatt Hotel in Roxas Boulevard in July last year. Their resignations were followed by demands for President Arroyo to resign, a twist of fate that Estrada finds parallels what happened to him five years ago.

His Cabinet officials who visit him in Tanay include former Secretaries Jose Pardo (Finance), Alfredo Romualdez (Health), Benjamin Diokno (Budget), Mario Tioaqui (Energy), and Horacio Morales (Agrarian Reform).

Estrada brands as "nothing but black propaganda" the repeated accusations that he maintains a "midnight Cabinet"–people he met late at night up to the wee hours of the morning in drinking and gambling sessions in and out of the Palace.

Neither is there truth, he swears, to the persistent demands by his detractors to send away his women, children and relatives from his extra-marital affairs, and cronies in the movie and other businesses and to keep them out of government activities and contracts.

"Everybody was set aside. I was focused on my services to the people. Not even my brothers or sisters influenced anybody because they did not interfere or meddled in government affairs," Estrada claims.

What keeps you busy in detention?

While admittedly bitter about what happened to him, the detained President says he has already "forgiven" all these people who have wronged him, including the two former Presidents, Cardinal Sin, Mercado, Reyes, and even Mrs.Arroyo and Gov. Singson, a former crony who came out with an exposé of alleged illegal gambling pay-offs and other accusations against Estrada.

This was after he took to "praying, reading the Bible, and writing his memoirs" that gave him spiritual healing. In fact, Estrada discloses that he has already written, by hand, 163 pages of his auto-biography, covering the time he entered Philippine movies as a bit actor to his entering the Famas Hall of Fame as best actor. He has no working title yet for his book.

"My life has not yet ended. My service to the people has not yet ended," Estrada points out.

When he was transferred to Tanay, Estrada found a new hobby as a hands-on farmer and poultry expert. He has hundreds of ducks, chickens, geese, and other fowl; his latest venture is a piggery farm.

Fr.Willy Gula, parish priest of St.Jude Thaddeus in Tanay, was asked by the former President to be the chief implementor of this piggery disperal project in Bgy. Sampalok. Estrada’s rest house is surrounded by 15,000 to 20,000 residents of the barangay who are the beneficiaries of the piglet dispersal project.

Fr.Gula, assisted by barangay officials, selects the beneficiaries and monitors their compliance with the terms of the contract not to sell or use for food the pig given to them to raise. Each family must return at least three out of ten piglets born by their sow. A "landrace" sow can produce as many as 14 piglets. The piglets returned are in turn distributed to the next batch of family beneficiaries.

This week, Estrada will announce his "Rebolusyon Laban sa Gutom" program will distribute vegetable seeds and conduct a seminar on backyard farming like what he does in Tanay.

"As I‘ve repeatedly been saying, a hungry stomach knows no laws. Filipinos are getting hungry," Estrada deplores as he noted with concern the latest Social Weather Station survey that showed more and more Filipinos were going hungry.

He is also keeping busy with the final touches for the Presidential Library he is putting up in his Tanay rest house which he will inaugurate on his 69th birthday this April.

What are your thoughts about FPJ?

Had the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. lived on to press his presidential election protest against Mrs. Arroyo, Estrada believes his bosom buddy would have been the "best President" the country could have. Poe died of a massive stroke and aneurysm in December last year, and his death effectively ended the pending protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal.

Over the vehement objections of government prosecutors, Estrada constructed at his Tanay rest house a memorial structure for FPJ which he calls "El Rey," or The King, the monicker of the late actor. The structure is like a cowboy pub house where Estrada displays memorabilia from the Philippine spaghetti western movies which he and FPJ starred in together.

"He (FPJ) was a very sincere and honest man. With or without me, he could have won if he was not cheated," Estrada insists.

Estrada reveals that a lot of Arroyo emissaries tried but failed to make him withdraw his support from FPJ, including offers that his plunder charges would be dismissed in exchange for his withdrawal of support.

Up to now, Estrada laments that he was not able to campaign for his bosom buddy because of his detention. He said FPJ did not make any movies but joined all of his campaigns, from the time he first ran as Mayor of San Juan, then as Senator, Vice President and in the 1992 presidential elections.

What is your EDSA-2 anniversary message to GMA?

The detained President followed the political drama through the news programs he watched on television. Even in detention, Estrada is one of the "usual suspects" in these ouster moves against Mrs.Arroyo. But Estrada says President Arroyo should not blame anyone because she brought upon herself these woes of repeated attempts at being forced out of power–just as she did to him.

"Vox populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. I was elected by the voice of God and then they (Arroyo and allies) removed me unconstitutionally," Estrada says. "That’s why God is punishing those who removed me; pati bansa natin nadamay tuloy."

Estrada though finds comfort in the fact that he is the only elected President of the Republic of the Philippines who got the "clearest mandate" with a total of ten million votes as against the four million votes of his nearest rival, House Speaker Jose de Venecia, during the 1998 presidential elections.

"All of these problems of political instability began when she (Arroyo) grabbed power from me. That started it all," Estrada points out.

Amid calls for her to resign or cut short her term, Estrada has this message for President Arroyo on the occasion of EDSA-2 anniversary this month: "She (Arroyo) should live up to what she said in (December) 2003."

In her Rizal Day speech in Baguio City on December 30, 2003, President Arroyo declared she would not run for the Presidency because this perception of her political plans, she said then, was causing "divisiveness" in the country.

Estrada believes Mrs.Arroyo is the solution to her own problems, as well as those that continue to hound the country to the detriment of the growing number of impoverished Filipinos.