Erap to file libel suit against beauty queen

Deposed President Joseph Estrada will file a multimillion-peso libel suit against former beauty queen Joelle Pelaez for linking him to a P2.9-billion money-laundering scheme in 2001 that was published in a series of reports in a national daily.

At a press conference yesterday, Estrada spokesman and former Maguindanao Rep. Didagen Dilangalen said a similar libel suit would also be filed in the United States where Pelaez is now.

In an interview, former senator Rene Saguisag, one of the lawyers to handle the Philippine case, said Estrada’s legal team would still decide where to file the libel suit as well as the amount to be asked for in damages.

Initially, Saguisag said Estrada had hinted that he wanted to sue Pelaez and Manila Standard Today, which published the story, for at least P10 million.

Saguisag added that Estrada’s lawyers will also decide who among the staff of Manila Standard Today staff would face a lawsuit.

"Under the law, all of them can be sued for libel, not only the reporters and the editors. If a reporter submits a story, he will not be the one to decide if it gets published or not," he said.

Dilangalen said Saguisag, who is also Estrada’s counsel in his plunder trial before the Sandiganbayan, is just one of his panel of lawyers to handle the Philippine case.

The US case will be handled by lawyer Leonardo Siguion-Reyna of the Siguion-Reyna, Montecillo and Ongsiako Law Office.

According to Dilangalen, there is suspicion on the timing of Pelaez’s exposé as it appeared on the Manila Standard Today several days before Estrada was scheduled to take the witness stand on Wednesday at the resumption of his plunder trial before the Sandiganbayan.

"This is obviously an attempt to distract President Estrada and to poison the minds of the anti-graft court justices and the public against him. But it will not prosper because the truth will prevail," Dilangalen said.

Dilangalen recalled a similar attempt was made in 2001 to link Estrada and Sen. Panfilo Lacson to an operation in the US to launder $2 billion in drug money.

Dilangalen said the attempt failed after the South China Morning Post reported that Citibank denied the allegation of Victor Corpus that Estrada or any member of his family had stashed $500 million in its Hong Kong branch.

In connection with the 2001 case, Dilangalen said Estrada filed a libel suit against Corpus and then Inquirer reporter Christine Herrera which was sustained by the Pasig City regional trial court. The case is now pending before the Supreme Court.

In a statement, Saguisag said there is no proof to link Estrada to the money-laundering scheme as alleged by Pelaez.

"Through innuendo, the syndicate is trying to convey the impression that President Estrada is a plunderer. In fact, what might be proven may not be incompatible with the behavior of a gallant philanderer, which he was admitted he was in the past. If the charge is philandering, he would have pleaded guilty many times a long time ago. But, now on his sixth year of detention, it is cruel to link him to events arguably going back to the last millennium, without proof now, as there was no proof in 2001 when the scheme was first tried and failed, dismally," Saguisag added.

Pelaez had accused Estrada and eight other people of allegedly using her name and forging her signature to launder P2.07 billion worth of stock, securities, bonds and other certificates of indebtedness through their transactions with the government-sequestered United Coconut Planters Bank.