Unless Estrada’s anti-impeachment guru Ernesto Maceda was talking through his hat over the weekend, there will be no such presidential tour-de-force appearance for the simple reason that it can only do Estrada more harm than good.
Never mind that the President has been heaping scorn on his former drinking buddy Luis "Chavit" Singson and a whole parade of witnesses including the new national heroine, Clarissa Ocampo, vowing that he will have his day in court and that the truth will set him free.
With the presidential cop-out apparently a done deal, we will never know how Estrada – a multi-awardee actor in his day – would have actually performed in the nation’s most popular telenovela since the lurid Marcos saga signed off almost 14 years ago.
Although Maceda claims the motive of this high-profile avoidance is plain common sense, most critics say it has more to do with fears that Estrada, visibly dispirited in recent days, wouldn’t be able to hold up against Singson’s brutal allegations and Ocampo’s "smoking gun" revelations.
With the purported jueteng pay-offs to Estrada exposed in numbing detail and the elaborate paper trail of the Jose Velarde bank account pointing directly in the President’s direction, Maceda may be most circumspect in advising his embattled client to avoid the trial like the plague itself.
Maceda also may have let the cat out of the bag by adding that in some 75 percent of all court cases in the land, lawyers improve their client’s chances of acquittal by keeping them off the witness stand. In short, why take chances when all indications are that the client could prejudice his own case by facing the court? The assumption, of course, is that the client is lying.
This must be the reason why, for all the President’s swagger about facing Singson and all other witnesses against him, to the point of answering each and every allegation, there was really little or no chance he would make good on his threat. His clever way out was that little colatilla he always appended to every brave declaration – "if my lawyers will allow me."
As it turns out, Maceda has all but pre-empted the defense panel in ruling out any such personal appearance by Estrada.
How this non-appearance will help or not help the defense’s case has become a matter of wild conjecture and debate. From the Dec. 7th start of the trial, some observers say, the panel’s main thrust has been to turn the tables on the prosecution and to paint Singson and the other witnesses as the accused rather than the accusers. Instead of the President’s guilt or innocence, the focus would be on Singson’s integrity or lack of it.
The only problem is that Singson has never presented himself as an angel of morality and rectitude. A confessed gambler, long-time warlord and charter member of the President’s "Midnight Cabinet", he has ventured into nothing more complicated than "spilling the beans" on his former friend and alleged partner-in-crime.
Opposition leaders and the public precisely attached credibility to Singson’s allegations because in nailing Estrada he was, in effect, also incriminating himself as a co-conspirator. There can be no honor in having participated in such a criminal conspiracy, although, some argue – there could be some redeeming grace in blowing the whistle on it.
Singson’s case has, of course, remarkably held up since it was first aired in October before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee and now before the impeachment tribunal. The nation’s eyes and ears will understandably be riveted to the upcoming cross-examination of this presidential nemesis by crack defense lawyers Estelito Mendoza and the Fortun brothers.
With just one trial appearance last Dec. 22nd, Clarissa Ocampo has joined Singson as yet another witness whose knock-out testimony screams for direct refutation by the President himself.
Nobody else but Estrada can directly challenge Singson and Ocampo, particularly in the light of very favorable media coverage and public opinion they have generated for themselves and, take note, at the President’s expense.
Only Estrada can dispute Singson’s damning tale of jueteng multimillion-peso bribes exchanged between them twice weekly for some two years.
Only Estrada can tell Ocampo (and/or Manuel Curato, Aprodicio Lacquian) that the Jose Velarde signatures are not his or that they never met on Feb. 4, 2000 when the P500- million Wellex deal was struck.
Instead, the tribunal and the nation will have to be content with cowardly denials from afar and the usual witness-demolition spectaculars that often pass for lawyerly excellence in this most unfortunate land. On such dubious grounds, the senator-jurors will have to convict or acquit the macho man who insists he’s innocent but won’t face his accusers, anyway.