Erap marks 1st year of freedom as ‘Father of the Masses’

10/27/2008

Former President Joseph Estrada last night marked his first year as a free man with a private Thanksgiving Mass with his family and friends at his residence in Greenhills, San Juan, a news release from his supporters said.

The former President was pardoned on Oct. 25, 2007 and released the following day. He was incarcerated for more than six years after being convicted of plunder by a special court of the San-diganbayan.

To this day, Estrada maintains his innocence. “I was convicted by a special court that was only special because it was specially created to convict me,” Estrada emphasizes. “I can look anybody in the eye and tell him with conviction that I did not steal a single centavo from government coffers.

He said he has been filled with the Holy Spirit and has forgiven those who conspired against him Close friends who used to frequent Estrada’s resthouse in Tanay, where he was incarcerated, observed that the former president has in fact become more spiritual.

“His newfound spirituality has become more evident since he regained his freedom. It is obvious that his focus now is not just on the political arena but more on a concern for the masses. He is truly the Father of the Masses,” said Rez Cortez, who attended the Thanksgiving Mass with other Estrada friends from the Palayain si Erap Movement, the People’s Movement Against Poverty, the Union of the Masses for Democracy and Justice, and the Fernando Poe Jr. Movement for Truth and Democracy.

Since his release, Estrada has been on a nationwide tour called Lakbay Pasasalamat to thank the millions who have continued supporting him even while he was humiliated and imprisoned during the power grab of 2001. This trip has taken him from Ilocos Norte to Zamboanga. Estrada has visited the provinces of Ilocos Norte, Buenget, Pampanga, Bulacan, Laguna, Mindoro, Negros Occidental and Davao, among others.

“It has been a year well spent,” Estrada spokesperson Margaux Salcedo observed. “Former President Erap has truly shown his dedication to helping uplift the plight of the poor. When the rice crisis hit the country, he was the first to distribute bags of rice to the poor, notably on his birthday, when he asked his friends to give him sacks of rice, instead of other presents, to distribute in impoverished cities in Metro Manila. When Typhoon Frank hit the country, he was on the ground, personally distributing relief goods to victims as far as Sibuyan Island in Romblon, in Bicol, Aklan and Iloilo, before President Arroyo reached the affected areas, and while government officials watched the Manny Pacquiao fight in the U.S. When the Administration pushed the Memorandum of Agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that would dismember the country, former President Estrada was quick to remind the Commander in Chief that her duty was to protect the territorial integrity of the country at all costs.”

Mayor JV Ejercito of San Juan, the former president’s son, who has been with the former president in several parts of the tour, said “the reception from the masses is proof that the people know the truth regarding Erap’s plunder trial: that he is innocent and that it was, more than anything, a conspiracy to put the incumbent president in power.”

Salcedo added that “whatever province we visit, there is always proof of former President Estrada’s good legacies: the airport in Iloilo, the St. Jude Parish in Bacolod, the resettlement homes in Rizal. The work of the Estrada administration was very much felt on the local level, among the poor, although these may not have been highlighted on a national scale. Seeing the masses in the different provinces continue to benefit from these projects, years after his ouster, is a kind of vindication for him as well.”

But Estrada has refused to say he is running for president again. Instead, he said he just wants to leave a good legacy.

“Although I am happy to have enjoyed freedom in the last 12 months, I am still saddened by the fact that 60 million Filipinos are still imprisoned in poverty, with 16 million hungry. That is why I am doubling my efforts - quadrupling my efforts - to help the masses rise from poverty. In the twilight of my life, I just want to be remembered as the man who championed the cause of the Filipino poor,” the former president concluded.

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