There are many firsts in the case of former President Rodrigo Duterte but being the first former Philippine President to have been charged, arrested and detained is not one of them. That title belongs to Joseph “Erap” Estrada.
In fact, of the four Philippine heads of state who have served in the 21st century, three have spent time in detention after their term ended: Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Duterte. The only one who did not suffer a similar fate was Noynoy Aquino.
Less than three months after he was deposed from the presidency in January 2001, Estrada was charged with plunder for allegedly receiving P545 million in payoffs from jueteng, P130 million from misappropriated excise taxes, and P189.7 million as commission in the sale of government shares in the Belle Corporation. He was also accused of maintaining a bank account containing P3.2 billion in the name of Jose Velarde.
After his arrest, the former actor was detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center and then transferred to a military camp in Tanay, Rizal. Eventually, he was placed on house arrest in a new vacation home in Metro Manila.
He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison on September 12, 2007. He filed a motion for reconsideration but withdrew it later to pave the way to the grant of executive clemency by Arroyo.
Arroyo, who succeded Estrada after his ouster and was elected to a fresh term in 2004, was herself charged with misappropriating P366 million of lottery funds. She was put under hospital arrest until the Supreme Court dismissed her case for insufficiency of evidence. Duterte, who was then the sitting President, had earlier reportedly offered her pardon—the same courtesy that she extended Estrada— but she declined because she wanted to fight her case in court.
There are vast differences between the cases of Duterte and Estrada, foremost of which is that unlike the former actor, the Davao strongman is not accused of corruption but of crimes against humanity. Estrada was tried and convicted by a Philippine court in Philippine soil; Duterte will be tried in a foreign land by an international court.
But there are parallels that you can draw between their cases. One is that both are former city mayors and were/are hugely popular with the masses. The other is the occurence of, in the case of Estrada, and the agitation for, in Duterte’s case, for people power.
When word came that the Sandiganbayan had ordered the arrest of Estrada, thousands of his supporters quickly gathered at the entrance to the subdivision where he resided to block the police, forcing the latter to withdraw.
The following day, Estrada was finally taken into custody with the help of 2,000 policemen and Philippine Marines. His followers then massed at the Edsa Shrine. In the evening of April 30, violence erupted between the rallyists and the policemen.
The following day, Estrada’s men marched into Malacañang, destroyed the barricades with dump trucks, set fire to vehicles and a police outpost and fought with the police.
They were eventually subdued but by then three protesters and a bystander had died. Unlike its predecessors Edsa III was a costly experience.
Planners of the operation to arrest Duterte must have considered the lessons from the Erap Experience. How else could we explain the swift arrest and delivery of Rodrigo Duterte?