Estrada lawyers ready ‘impact witnesses’

One of the court-appointed lawyers of deposed President Joseph Estrada yesterday said they have more than enough witnesses who can destroy the testimonies of the star prosecution witnesses in the plunder case against Estrada.

"We have around 50 (witnesses). It cannot be less than 50. And this will surely destroy the testimonies of (former Ilocos Sur governor Luis) Chavit (Singson) and Clarissa Ocampo, and these are ‘impact witnesses.’ We’re just holding our cards close to our chest," defense lawyer Prospero Crescini said.

Crescini’s statement was in reaction to defense panel members’ making public their defense strategy and politicizing the plunder, illegal use of the alias Jose Velarde and perjury charges against Estrada and his son Jinggoy before the Sandiganbayan.

"We’re telling them to please don’t expose what our defenses will be. You know I’m more a man of the law. I could not give a damn about this politics. Let the evidence speak for itself. That’s why we’re a little confused about this case because we’re holding a different view," Crescini said.

His hands, along with those of the rest of the court-appointed defense panel — lawyers Manuel Pamaran, Noel Malaya and Irene Jurado — are tied at this stage of the trial because Ateneo Law School lecturer Alan Paguia, Estrada’s newly hired lawyer, wants them off the case.

Paguia, it will be recalled, has questioned the Sandiganbayan’s jurisdiction over the case by contending Estrada is still president and that he had been illegally forced from office. A sitting president is immune from prosecution until the end of his six-year term.

The new defense lawyer also filed a motion to dismiss the case on the same grounds.

"We can do nothing" about Paguia’s motion to dismiss the case, Crescini said.

"We can’t attack the jurisdiction of the Sandiganbayan," he said, since they were just appointed in the first place. "We will be just like fools if we do that because we participated in the trial and even cross-examined the witnesses."