Erap: Grand conspiracy ousted me
Posted by Michille on June 1st, 2006
Erap: Grand conspiracy ousted me – ABS-CBN News!
By JOMAR CANLAS, The Manila Times Reporter
Former president Joseph Estrada testified Wednesday that the elite, the Catholic Church and military and political personalities conspired to oust him in 2001.
Appearing for the seventh time before the Sandiganbayan Special Division, which is trying him for plunder, the 69-year-old Estrada also insisted he is still president and is immune from suit.
Under direct examination by the defense, he named the supposed conspirators as “the Ayalas, Lopezes, the late Jaime Cardinal Sin, some bishops, the Makati Business Club headed by Ricardo Romulo and Guillermo Luz, former president Fidel Ramos, Governor Luis “Chavit” Singson of Ilocos Sur, military generals, spouses Gloria and Mike Arroyo.”
Malacañan was quick to defend the President and her husband. “Vice-President Arroyo was just as a constitutional successor . . . as such she was sworn in to office by no less than the chief justice in the presence of others in EDSA Shrine. So, I think [Estrada’s allegation] is not really fair,” Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told a press briefing.
Mrs. Arroyo also “did not have a hand at all in the campaigning for congressmen to sign the impeachment charge against President Estrada,” Ermita said.
The defense was trying to establish a “grand political conspiracy” to overthrow Estrada and install then-Vice-President Arroyo as president.
It presented an article from the March 5, 2001, issue of Graphic magazine in which Mike Arroyo told the National Artist Nick Joaquin that the ouster plot was hatched as early as January 2000.
“[Mike] Arroyo says that he and Chavit Singson had what they called Plan B involving elements of the military eager to strike the first blow against the Erap regime,” Estrada said. “It was a clear power grab. She (Mrs. Arroyo) could not wait for her turn to become president.”
Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio tried to block the direct examination, saying it had no bearing on the four issues against Estrada, which are the tobacco excise tax, the Jose Velarde account, the Best World Resources scam and the jueteng payola.
The Court, however, allowed the questioning to continue.
The conspirators
Estrada said the Ayalas and the Lopezes had an ax to grind against him because he denied their request to raise water rates by up to 80 percent. The Ayalas own the Manila Water Co. concession; the Lopezes, Maynilad.
Sin wanted him out because he turned down his request for a 40-day truce with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and to block the approval of the Visiting Forces Agreement, he said.
The Makati Business Club, through Romulo, who was also the vice-chairman at the time of Equitable PCIBank, “facilitated the testimony of impeachment star witness Clarissa Ocampo and several bank officials,” Estrada said.
The defense presented a document showing that Romulo passed a resolution in the PCIBank supporting all bank officials who will testify in the impeachment trial.
Estrada said Ramos got angry with him after he formed the Saguisag Commission to investigate the Centennial Expo scam.
He said former police officer Reynaldo Berroya was also a part of the conspiracy because Estrada and Panfilo Lacson, who was then the National Police chief, helped convict Berroya of kidnapping the Taiwanese Jack Chou.
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