Erap wants Davide summoned as his witness

Lawyers of ousted President Joseph Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan yesterday to summon retired Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. to testify on the defense argument that Estrada was prematurely deprived of his immunity from suit.

Former senator Rene Saguisag, Estrada’s lead counsel, said Davide would be asked to confirm that on Jan. 20, 2001 he and his successor, Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, had decided to swear in Mrs. Arroyo as president although Estrada was still in Malacañang.

"The then Chief Justice did not tell the rest of the court that, in fact, long before Executive Secretary Edgardo Angara’s diary was published and became known, he (Davide) and his successor had decided to install the Vice President at noon as President, even when the principal accused was still in the Palace," he said.

Saguisag said the defense team will also ask Davide to affirm his foreword in the book, "Reforming the Judiciary," which was written by Panganiban.

"‘Reforming the Judiciary’ was circulated in the Supreme Court freely in late 2002 and early 2003, but not one justice moved, for the sake of truth and justice, to recall and reconsider the flawed, inadequate or insufficient factual account of what had really led to the principal accused’s departure from the Palace, which narration was silent on the oral decision of the two chief justices to institute a regime change nullifying the people’s verdict in 1998," he said.

Saguisag said it is only now with his retirement that Davide could be subpoenaed to testify on Estrada’s cases.

"Now is the time to get the truth from one of the two principal figures who decided to install the Vice President at noon of Jan. 20, 2001 and thus exposed the fatal and flawed analysis in the legitimacy cases, that there was ‘constructive resignation,’" he said. — Jose Rodel Clapano