Erap, high school buddies to celebrate golden jubilee

Members of the Ateneo High School Class 1955, led by their most famous classmate, deposed President Joseph Estrada, are now lining up activities in preparation for the celebration of their 50th anniversary next month.

This was the reason why Makati Rep. Agapito "Butz" Aquino, Estrada’s classmate in Ateneo, is imploring the Sandiganbayan to reconsider its decision to junk his petition asking to allow him to visit the former president at his rest house detention in Tanay, Rizal.

Aquino originally filed a petition at the anti-graft court to allow him and a dozen others to celebrate his birthday last Saturday with Estrada in Tanay.

"It’s our golden anniversary this year and we would like to celebrate this through activities we plan to undertake," Estrada lamented. "And Butz has been gathering all our classmates for this event and we were supposed to start the preparations while we celebrate his birthday in Tanay."

Aside from Aquino, Estrada’s classmates in Ateneo include former energy secretary Mario Tiaoqui, former press secretary Horacio "Ducky" Paredes, businessman Antonio Lopa, and outgoing Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Rafael Buenaventura.

Estrada’s colorful time spent at the Ateneo has attained almost legendary status, including the incident where he was suspended in his junior year for beating up an American student, Patrick Hilton, after the latter bullied the much smaller Tiaoqui.

Estrada said he and Hilton have since become good friends and have both attended their class reunions in the past.

"But I learned that he (Hilton) is now comatose in the US," Estrada told The STAR.

He offered to host the organizational meeting for the golden jubilee anniversary of Ateneo High School Class 1955 at his 16-hectare rest house, which is serving as a tightly guarded detention facility for the detained former president while he undergoes a plunder trial at the Sandiganbayan.

Visitors are only allowed entry to the Tanay facility subject to approval of the anti-graft court, which has imposed further restrictions following intelligence information that the former president had been providing "logistics support" to people involved in renewed destabilization attempts against the Arroyo administration.

Estrada, however, denied the accusations and deplored his virtual "isolation" imposed by the Sandiganbayan.