Estrada, Jinggoy in court Monday

Ousted President Joseph Estrada, along with son his former San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada, and former legal counsel Edward Serapio will appear before the Sandiganbayan Monday to Thursday for the pre-trial of the plunder case against them.

The Sandiganbayan ordered yesterday Philippine National Police chief Director General Leandro Mendoza and Senior Superintendent Prospero Noble, director of Camp Crame’s headquarters support service, to present the three before the court next week.

The Estradas are detained at the presidential suite of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City, while Serapio remains in custody at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group headquarters in Camp Crame, also in Quezon City.

Meanwhile, the Sandiganbayan gave former finance undersecretary Antonio Belicena and his co-accused until Wednesday next week to answer the motion for reconsideration of the Ombudsman seeking to revive the 62 estafa and graft charges earlier filed against them.

Belicena and the other former finance department officials were accused of conspiring with one another to allow the issuance of P1.2 billion worth of questionable tax credit certificates to several garments firms. The certificates were later transferred to Petron Inc., one of the "Big 3" oil companies.

The accused includes Uldarico Andutan Jr., former deputy executive director of the one-stop-shop-interagency tax credit and duty drawback center. –Jose Rodel Clapano