Should Estrada be coddled?

THE BROUHAHA that erupted this week over former president Joseph Estrada's many trips to his vacation home in Tanay town, outside Manila (up to 16 times in three months from December 2003 until March 2004, according to some accounts) raises the interesting question: Should Estrada be coddled by the state?

Clearly, as the first Philippine president to ever be impeached and driven from office, Estrada's imprisonment, as he awaits the conclusion of his corruption trials, poses the Philippine justice system and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with interesting questions of how Estrada should be treated.

Criminal complaints have been lodged against President Macapagal-Arroyo, Philippine National Police chief Hermogenes Ebdane, Housing Secretary Michael Defensor, and the head of police security and protection office, Superintendent Roland Sacramento, for allegedly having known and even approved of Estrada's many trips to his rest house.

President Macapagal-Arroyo even admitted to treating Estrada in a humane manner in an interview with the Inquirer, which appeared last Sunday. Now she is denying ever having known of or approved the trips Estrada took to his rest house and to visit his mother in the Greenhills subdivision in a Manila suburb.

Of course, it is clear to me that Macapagal-Arroyo has as usual taken the route of political expediency and relaxed the imprisonment terms of Estrada in the hope of gaining the sympathy of pro-Estrada voters in the presidential election in May. She may deny it all she likes, but not many people believe her denials. She has become a master at changing sides whenever it suits her most, and this has cost her much support among many groups who originally supported her during the EDSA People Power uprising that forced Estrada out of the presidency in 2001.

Now, I must point out that Estrada's detention area in Camp Capinpin in Tanay, in Rizal province, is near his rest house, and that is most likely why President Macapagal-Arroyo agreed to have him transferred in the first place from the Metro Manila region to Rizal. It must have been thought that being slightly removed from the media spotlight of the capital, Estrada would be more comfortable and could be secretly allowed to receive large groups of supporters in his rest house.

From published reports it appears that this is what in fact happened. A stream of personal and political visitors to his rest house has taken place over the past three months, with senatorial candidate Miriam Defensor-Santiago admitting this week that she had made a trip to the rest house to ask for Estrada's permission to run under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration's K-4 coalition banner.

Chief Special Prosecutor Dennis Villa-Ignacio, who is investigating the furlough allegations for the Sandiganbayan anti-corruption court, said on Thursday that he would be willing to drop the charges against President Macapagal-Arroyo and others if Estrada were returned to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, a military hospital, in Quezon City, where he was originally being held.

Of course, the crux of this whole complaint against Estrada's visits to his rest house is that the trips were done without the knowledge and formal approval of the Sandiganbayan. No one is disputing the fact that as a former president, Estrada is entitled to and is receiving better treatment than a common criminal. But how much special treatment is too much? How many trips to his rest house and to Greenhills are excessive? These are questions that should be answered by the court and codified for future reference.

With stories on his secret trips splashed across newspapers this week, police guards have naturally become strict in their treatment of Estrada, who unsurprisingly whined to the Daily Tribune that he was "being treated like a caged animal."

"I'm being treated like an animal, no, worse than animals in captivity because they are at least exposed to sunlight, while they [his guards] deny me even this," Estrada told the paper. "It's like I am now in solitary confinement."

I personally believe that Estrada should be allowed to visit his mother in Greenhills for Christmas and on her birthday. He should also be allowed to receive visitors in his rest house, but in strictly controlled numbers. And the Estrada camp should formally apply to the Sandiganbayan for permission for all of the above. Cutting secret deals with President Macapagal-Arroyo gives the bad impression that Estrada is getting special treatment that he doesn't deserve, and makes the President look bad. Going through the proper channels could have saved both sides a lot of grief.

Comments or questions? E-mail the author at manilamoods@hotmail.com.