Justice and freedom for Erap

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
8/19/2005



How long has President Estrada been incarcerated? Almost 1,500 days, by my reckoning. How time flies for us who are into his situation from the outside. I wonder if President Estrada would share the same opinion of how fast those 1,500 days have been. It’s a rhetorical point I am making here. Obviously for someone on the inside of a cage, even a gilded one, the days and months would be excruciatingly slow, especially when the prisoner painfully knows he is unjustly accused and punished. Meanwhile the true felons have been uncovered but are out frolicking in freedom and impunity.

There are rumors of court bail in the works, allegedly being worked out by El Shaddai leader Mike Velarde. The story is that Velarde has invited President Estrada to attend onstage the religious leader’s birthday commemoration at the group’s regular Saturday “gawain” or “works”, which is a gathering of the flock. In this gathering, which happens to be tomorrow August 20, Velarde supposedly will bring Gloria Arroyo on stage too and make the two shake hands. The bail, according to the grapevine, is the quid pro quo from Gloria for the handshake.

If this rumor is true I would have one advice for President Estrada: don’t take the offer. President Estrada’s freedom, or for that matter anyone’s freedom is not a commodity to be traded for anything. After four years of investigation and persecution, not an ounce of proof has been squeezed out of the charges leveled by the Arroyo administration against President Estrada. President Estrada and his legal teams have proven his innocence beyond any reasonable doubt, while Atty. Alan Paguia has hammered in the point that Estrada is the only constitutional and elected president of the country.

Secondly, “bail” is instituted to prevent an accused from absconding to evade prosecution. Estrada has exhibited all the willingness to face trial, even came back home from a Hong Kong medical trip. How many times had Gloria offered exile, extended through Nani Perez and others, to Estrada and have all accusations dropped and invariably rejected by Estrada. A guilty party would grab the chance to fly the coop, but not Estrada. He faced the hostile persecution of the powerful Edsa Dos mob rather than run with tail between hind legs.

Mike Arroyo hasn’t shown half the courage to open himself to investigations and Gloria is unashamedly fighting tooth and nail to keep her fraudulent presidential immunity as shield. President Estrada has painstakingly nurtured his dignity over the past four years, head held high despite the crown of thorns place upon it. No amount of indignity, insult, pain inflicted upon his family, threats of physical harm or elimination (as was the case during the Oakwood incident when he was kidnapped by military elements from the Veterans Hospital and moved to a Camp Aguinaldo cell) deterred him.

Estrada should not allow what may be a cheap trick to swindle from him the moral high ground he gained from four years of privation he has suffered. Cheap is Gloria’s treatment of justice and freedom as bargaining chips for pogi points. If she has half the dignity and integrity of Estrada she would just do the right thing and instruct the court (as everybody knows she does) to issue unconditional bail. We doubt she is capable of such high level deed, but if she could she could rise to a level of statesmanship that would be the very thing to save her from permanent ignominy.

Gloria is more likely a political cynic who believe that “those who win write history”. How wrong they are. Only truth writes history, as we are reminded of Edsa I, Cory Aquino and FVR who deposed Marcos yet, twenty years later it is Marcos that is revered by the most number of Filipinos while his Edsa I “heroes” are disdained as failures. Gloria has already lost anyway, and there is absolutely no question that Estrada will be adjudged by history as a great human being and leader. Gloria can only hope to salvage herself from being known to next generations as the despicable cheat.

Velarde’s appeal to Estrada to attend his birthday celebration on El Shaddai’s stage, as reports have it, puts Estrada in a vulnerable position. He will find it impolite to deny an invitation from a friend. If Velarde has indeed arranged for bail, as we know he and the INC have been petitioning the regime since three years ago, it should be accepted only if absolutely unconditional and granted even before the birthday appearance on stage – otherwise it would appear as a quip pro quo which Gloria would not respect anyway and take advantage of after she gets what she needs.

On the principles of justice and freedom Estrada should, as he has always, show no retreat, no surrender. Estrada has suffered four years of incarceration but total vindication is just around the corner. Others argue that even if there’s a handshake people already know the truth. Where justice is denied any show of conciliation is hollow; even if Velarde gets a face lift and Gloria neutralizes El Shaddai’s Erap sympathizers. Despite my misgivings I know, out of the kindness of his heart Erap may just gift them with his usual magnanimity.

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