Estrada refuses to sign pre-trial order without ej

After security guards bodily removed his lawyer former senator Rene Saguisag from the Sandiganbayan, ousted President Joseph Estrada refused to sign yesterday the pre-trial order he was being asked to acknowledge.

Estrada told Associate Justice Teresita de Castro in open court that he was ready to face trial for plunder but that he cannot sign any document without Saguisag.

"Without my counsel, I cannot sign anything," he said. "I’m very much ready for the trial. I told you before that I was offered to leave the country twice. But I did not accept it."

De Castro ordered security guards to carry Saguisag out of the courtroom for "disorderly conduct" after he butted in while former Supreme Court Justice Serafin Cuevas, also an Estrada lawyer, was asking the justice why the Sandiganbayan was compelling defense lawyers and the Estradas to sign the pre-trial order.

"Bring that man out of this courtroom for disorderly conduct," an irate De Castro ordered.

While De Castro was telling Cuevas that the defense was "merely delaying the case," Saguisag tried to join the argument but De Castro told him that he has not yet been recognized.

But Saguisag tried to drive his point and this angered De Castro who reached for the gavel, banged it and ordered the security guards to take Saguisag out of the courtroom.

De Castro told Cuevas the pre-trial order was merely a "verbatim copy" of the stipulation of facts which Estrada’s two other lawyers, Cleofe Verzola and Felix Carao had signed last Sept. 6.

"Saguisag’s actuation is deliberately done to delay the proceedings," she said. "You have no intention to sign the pre-trial order. You are disowning the joint stipulation of facts signed by Verzola."

However, Cuevas asked the Sandiganbayan to allow the defense at least five days within which to study and review the pre-trial order so they could give an "intelligent advice" to the Estradas.

"I am not questioning the pre-trial order, but what I was questioning is why we are being compelled to sign the pre-trial order," he said. "The court committed not only a mistake but a blunder. They should back out a little not to compel us."

Cuevas said the anti-graft court furnished the defense a copy of the pre-trial order about 30 minutes before yesterday’s 2:20 p.m. hearing.

The short period of time was not enough for the defense to have an "intelligent guess" on whether to advise the Estradas to sign the document or not, he added.

Cuevas said the defense needs at least five days to go over the pre-trial order.

However, De Castro said the defense was raising new matters that are "completely dilatory" and that no "subtraction and addition" had been made on the pre-trial order.