Erap for FPJ all the way

CAMP CAPINPIN, Tanay, Rizal — Former President Joseph Estrada has made no deal with President Arroyo, nor has she asked for one. And he says he is supporting his friend Fernando Poe Jr. "all the way" in the May 10 elections.

In an interview yesterday, Estrada denied that any "accommodation" had been reached with the President in exchange for "better treatment," least of all his getting to use a sprawling rest house he has owned since 1969, which is just across the winding highway from Camp Capinpin.

"Living in my so-called villa?" Estrada exclaimed. "This is absolutely untrue."

The detained ex-President said he deeply regretted the relief of his entire police security detail for allegedly allowing him to visit his nearby "ranch," which, of course, by coincidence, virtually neighbors the Philippine National Police camp in which he is being held.

Erap, indeed, limping heavily ("I can’t walk more than 10 meters!"), toured this writer around his barbed wire-enclosed compound inside the camp, where at night, he pointed out to me, a wire around the barbed enclosure is electrified to "fry" any intruder or would-be escapee.

He pointed at the guard posts, and the high wall behind the small cottage (with two little toilets, one filthy) in which he lives. However, he added, the place is "far better" and healthier than his previous quarters inside the Veterans Memorial Hospital in Quezon City, for "at least I can get a good sun, cooling breezes and fresh air." He rolled up his sleeves to show me how nicely sun-tanned he had become. But he continues to protest his incarceration. "I am still the President," he reiterated. "I did not resign" was his assertion.

He did not, however, utter any disparaging remarks about the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court now trying Criminal Case No. 26558, 26565 and 2905 (People vs. Joseph E. Estrada, et al.) for plunder, etc.

"I am innocent," Estrada avowed, "and even if my friend, Fernando Poe Jr., is elected president, I will not ask Ronnie for my release, pardon, or whatever. I will simply ask him to assure me a fair trial!"

Commenting on the "rest house" issue, the former president underscored that he did not stay, sleep, nor linger in that compound.

"I went there on only two occasions," Estrada said. "The first time was on Dec. 25, Christmas, when I was permitted under heavy police escort to go to visit my old and ailing mother. Enroute from the camp, I requested my police and custodial escort to permit me to visit the rest house compound, where I am having a chapel built, to inspect how it was progressing. I swear we did not stay there more than an hour."

The second occasion was on February 11, his son Jinggoy’s birthday. There were so many persons coming to visit him, greet him, and co-celebrate with Jinggoy, that he had asked permission from the Camp authorities to permit him to receive the influx of guests in his rest house compound." There he met dozens of guests and well-wishers, like Senator Loren Legarda, vice presidential running mate of FPJ (who’s already admitted being there), Johnny Ponce Enrile, and, in truth, most of the Senatorial line-up of his friend, FPJ. He added, on the other hand, that FPJ did not attend.

Estrada declared he is supporting Ronnie Poe all the way, without reservation. He said that Ronnie has all the finest qualities required of the kind of leader needed by the Filipino people. "We are in crisis," he stated. "Only a sincere, earnest, true leader like Ronnie can lead our people out of the mess."

He recalled that FPJ had always been there for him when he was the one in politics, but after victory, Poe had never asked for reward or benefit. In the same way, he would support FPJ to the very end. "He’s just shy," Erap remarked on the way FPJ has seemed, at times, at a loss for words.

"He is very intelligent, and, most of all, he has a good heart, is strong and firm, and will not compromise with corruption or wrongdoing."

Doesn’t Erap envy his old pal, now that Ronnie is the one running for President and he is now the one that’s in jail, fallen "from Palace to prison"?

Estrada said: "He’s the leader who’s needed, I am for him 100 percent." (Much of this was said off-camera, but see IMPACT 2004 on ANC/ABS-CBN for gripping, no-holds-barred, on-camera interview – a heart-to-heart talk with MVS, in which the ex-President bares his soul – Editors).

In any event, I flew to Camp Capinpin by helicopter for my IMPACT 2004 with the formal approval of the Sandigan Special Division trying the Estrada cases, thanks to the Resolution approving the interview approved by their Honors, Chairman (Presiding Justice) Minita V. Chico-Nazario, Associate Justice Edilberto G. Sandoval, and Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro.

The visit was approved by the Chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Hermogenes "Jun" Ebdane, and the Camp authorities carefully supervised the proceedings. There was no attempt, though, to impose "censorship". We were accompanied, for purposes of fulfilling the Court’s conditions, by the very helpful but firm Mr. Edgardo A. Urieta, Chief of Security and Sheriffs Services.

I write this to point out that interviews with the "detained" former Chief Executive are not granted, willy nilly, but through formal Resolution of the Court, in response to a motion by my lawyers. We did this by the book.

I was accompanied to Camp Capinpin by my admirable ANC/ABS-CBN TV co-host Ces Drilon. However, upon arrival, she was informed that by order of the court only I was permitted to interview the former President. Like a real trouper, Ces graciously assisted me off-camera in the interview.

But I won’t try to pre-empt my own IMPACT 2004 show, Abangan.