The battery of lawyers, which includes the best trial lawyers in the country, was not good enough to stop the anti-graft court from consigning Erap to reclusion perpetua.
The court also forfeited in favor of the government several deposits holding billions of pesos in the name of a foundation and Jose Velarde that witnesses claimed is Estrada's. But actually witnesses was not needed in the case of the JV account because the former president himself confessed before a nationwide telecast that he signed the signature cards.
The "Boracay" mansion in the heart of Quezon City, which housed Laarni--the other woman in the life of the President, was ordered forfeited, too.
The doomsayer was wrong again when they said that hundreds of thousands will spill out into the streets of Manila, Makati and elsewhere to protest the guilty verdict if at all Erap will be found guilty.
At the stock market the index rose in positive reaction to the sentence. Jittery over the possible outcome of the promulgation, the peso retreated close to P47 last Tuesday, but it recovered very quickly when the guilty verdict was handed down.
Obviously the masses have gotten tired of endless politicking. It's only the usual tired faces and garrulous failed opposition who kept the ember of hate a burning. Even then, they too have lost the fire in their stomachs. As I listened to them I knew they have lost steam and it's clear they have resigned to the manifest destiny of a bacchanalian leader.
But what now? My view is that, if Erap has indeed committed graft, it can hardly compare with what others who remain free had stolen from the government and the people. We have congressmen who had plundered more that what Erap had possibly amassed. Some congressmen were involved in the Piatco mess. Until today however they remain free and un-indicted.
I am not inclined to believe that the guilty verdict of Estrada had sent jitters to government officials who had made business out of politics. I do not think that verdict will be a deterrent for hungry "pacmen" in the government bureaucracy to scrap the shady ZTE contract.
The offer must be too juicy that if we are to believe Joey de Venecia, he was offered by Chairman Abalos US$10 million to withdraw from the bid. I hope anyway that this will be actionable in Congress for a potential impeachment prospect to come next.
BTW, our own Dolfo del Rosario was with President Arroyo at the time when the promulgation of the sentence was being read. GMA apparently had no time to waste monitoring the court proceedings. As Dolfo told me, the President had to later ask somebody as to what had happened in the Sandiganbayan. When she was told of the guilty verdict, her initial reaction was to check on how the stock market reacted. When she was told that the peso and the market reacted positively, the President smiled and continued with her usual chores.
September 12th was a good day for the Philippines. The sentencing of a popular ex-president proves to the world that we mean business and that there is no sacred cow that is exempted from the prosecution and guilty verdict.
