Estrada lawyers oppose hectic trial sked

Lawyers of former President Joseph Estrada formally informed the Sandiganbayan yesterday of their opposition to a thrice a week trial schedule set to begin next week.

And for the umpteenth time, lawyers of the deposed president again asked the special anti-graft court to allow their client to travel to the United States for a badly needed knee-cap surgery.

Estrada’s lawyer Rene Saguisag denied the defense lawyers have agreed to the new schedule imposed by the three-member special division which had taken over the proceedings of all the Estrada-related cases lodged with the anti-graft court.

"We could not have committed to what is virtually impossible," he said. "It is not true that we ever had sessions before involving trial three days a week."

He said the former president’s lawyers would be forced to drop out of the cases if the court insists on hearing the cases three times a week. In fact, he said, the defense panel has already informed the Estradas that they should now start looking for substitute lawyers.

The defense panel also asked the court to approve their long-standing motion for permission to travel abroad on behalf of their client. They submitted a report prepared by the deposed leader’s personal physician, Dr. Lorenzo Hocson, on the condition of their client’s knee problem.

The deposed president is set to appear in court again on Feb. 13. He will be arraigned on charges of illegal use of alias and perjury. Before that, he will undergo a second eye surgery at the Asian Eye Institute in Makati City this Sunday, Feb. 10.

At a hearing Wednesday, the defense panel went into a heated argument with the justices of the special division after Associate Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, who heads the division, announced the new trial schedules.

Former Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas, a member of the defense panel, told the court that all of them have other cases to attend to and would be unable to keep up with the new pace the court wants to follow in hearing the cases.

Saguisag said he doubts if deposed president Joseph Estrada and his son Jinggoy, who are both facing plunder charges, could immediately find a new set of lawyers.

"It is not that we insist on what we want," Cuevas said, "or that this Honorable Court insists on what it wants. We have to deal also with what other courts want, to which we have plighted our word."